Chinese give glimpse at cyber attacks

A CHINESE television clip just six seconds long has given an important insight into how cyber attacks can be used by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) against specific targets, in this case the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong.

Although China has repeatedly denied having links to hacking attacks, foreign governments and private security firms have long said Beijing uses computer hacking attacks to target rivals and glean intelligence.

Earlier this month, researchers at the McAfee internet security company said they had discovered a massive series of hacking attacks targeting the networks of 72 organisations including the United Nations, and governments of the US, Taiwan, India, South Korea, Vietnam and Canada.

It said one state was behind the infiltrations, dubbed “Operation Shady Rat”, and analysts said China was the country in question. China angrily denied the claims, saying it was a victim of hacking.

This week's programme on the CCTV7 channel, titled The Internet Storm is Here, showed military experts discussing cyber attacks and US cyber operations. The clip was removed from the internet yesterday.

In the programme, an operative used a “denial of service” (DoS)” attack – which renders an online resource unusable to a particular user – on a Falun Gong website. The scene could have been staged for the purposes of the programme but offered a fascinating look into cyberwarfare at work.

The report came on the same day that the official Xinhua news agency condemned a Pentagon report on the ever-expanding PLA. The agency said the US defence department’s take on China’s drive to modernise was “cock-and-bull” designed to alarm.

In its annual report on China’s military strength, the Pentagon said Beijing appeared on track to forge a modern military by 2020, adding that this build-up could destabilise the Asia-Pacific region.

The report referred to hacking attacks from China, saying they could one day be used as an aggressive military weapon rather than just for gathering data.

“The accesses and skills required for those intrusions are similar to those necessary to conduct computer network attacks. Developing capabilities for cyberwarfare is consistent with authoritative PLA military writings,” it said.

Xinhua said the allegation was “an utterly cock-and-bull story about the Chinese military based on a wild guess and illogical reasoning.”