China’s cyber-spies spread their net

Computer hacking seems to have become yet another Chinese growth industry. A few days after developments suggesting Chinese hackers had compromised German government computer systems, the FT reports on Monday that the Pentagon was forced to close down part of its unclassified computer system in June after it was penetrated by hackers apparently from the People’s Liberation Army.

These follow reported cyber-espionage attempts by Chinese hackers against other governments, including the UK’s.

Robert Gates, US defence secretary, may not be personally worried. He has said he is too low-tech a guy even to use email. But his department and other western defence and security agencies are concerned with what they regard as China’s aggressive cyber-spying.

Indeed, such are the Beijing government’s efforts to control the activities of its citizens on the internet that any hackers operating from China are almost certainly working for the authorities. Yet it is probably also right to assume that the US and other western governments are busy infiltrating the computer systems of foreign governments. It is therefore disingenuous to complain too vigorously when those same foreign governments become good at doing it back.

The attractions of using cyberspace for spying are obvious. It is cheap and governments do not have to deal with the risks and insecurities associated with intelligence officers, agents and informers operating in foreign countries.

But the targets for these 21st-century spies are not new. For the most part they are seeking the sort of secret information governments have long sought from friends and adversaries: political and defence intelligence, science and technology innovations, commercially sensitive information and in some cases news about exiled dissidents.

So far public reports suggest China is concentrating for now on espionage rather than sabotage. However, the latter cannot be ruled out, particularly after the cyber-sabotage this year of Estonia’s government computers, assumed to have emanated from Russia.

All this emphasises that holders of sensitive information, whether in the private or the public sector, should assume – as many already do – that competitors are right now trying to get their hands on it.

It also suggests we should be alive to the possibility that there exist other critical vulnerabilities in the west – indeed even in its technologically dependent militaries – that could be exploited by a determined cyber-adversary.