TrendChinese military hacked into Pentagon

Published 5 September 2007

China improves its cyber warfare capabilities; massive penetration of Pentagon computers in June — and Chinese easy penetration of the networks of defense contactors and think-tanks would allow China not only to gather information, but also disrupt operations

This is not what we want to hear: The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the U.S. defense department. The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. The FT’s Demetri Sevastopulo reports that current and former officials say an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The Pentagon said it had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack.

The PLA regularly probes U.S. military networks, and the U.S. intelligence community for its part regularly scans Chinese networks, but U.S. officials said the penetration in June raised concerns to a new level because of fears that China had shown it could disrupt systems at critical times. “The PLA has demonstrated the ability to conduct attacks that disable our system … and the ability in a conflict situation to re-enter and disrupt on a very large scale,” said a former official, who said the PLA had penetrated the networks of U.S. defense companies and think-tanks.

Hackers from numerous locations in China spent several months systematically probing the Pentagon system before overcoming its defenses. The Pentagon took down the network for more than a week while the attacks continued, and is to conduct a comprehensive diagnosis. The Pentagon is still investigating how much data was downloaded, but one person with knowledge of the attack said most of the information was probably unclassified. He said the event had forced officials to reconsider the kind of information they send over unsecured e-mail systems.

The National Security Council (NSC) said the White House had created a team of experts to consider whether the administration needed to restrict the use of BlackBerries because of concerns about cyber espionage.