by Eric Lichtblau, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officials believe the Chinese military is working to launch wide-scale cyber-attacks on American and Taiwanese computer networks, including Internet-linked military systems considered vulnerable to sabotage, according to a classified CIA report.
Moreover, U.S. authorities are bracing for a possible wave of hacking attacks by Chinese students against the United States in coming weeks, according to the analysis. The confidential alert, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, was sent to intelligence officials a week ago.
Although U.S. officials have voiced concerns about individual hackers in China who have defaced federal and private Web sites, the United States has resisted publicly linking the Chinese government to those attacks or to broader cyber-style warfare.
The new CIA report, however, makes clear that U.S. intelligence analysts have become increasingly concerned that authorities in Beijing are actively planning to damage and disrupt U.S. computer systems through the use of Internet hacking and computer viruses.
Although the assessment concludes that China has not yet acquired the technical sophistication to do broad damage to U.S. and Taiwanese systems, it maintains that this is the “intended goal” of the People’s Liberation Army. “The mission of Chinese special forces includes physical sabotage” of vulnerable systems, the report says — a sign that some analysts said is driven by China’s hostility toward Taiwan.
The report comes as Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao prepares to visit the U.S. next week. Hu, who will succeed Jiang Zemin as head of the Communist Party this year and as president in 2003, will visit Honolulu, San Francisco and New York before going to Washington, where he will meet with President Bush.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington insisted yesterday that Beijing is only conducting computer research that is strictly defensive in nature.
“It is not the Chinese government’s policy to disrupt the computer system of any other country,” said Larry Wu, an official in the embassy’s science and technology section.
“We do research on the security of computers, of course — self-defense to understand how a hacker can get into our computer systems so we can defend it,” he said. “But China has never assumed an offensive stance with regards to computer technology.”
But several specialists in Chinese security and military affairs said the CIA’s conclusions jibe with their own observations about China’s research into offensive-minded cyber-tools.
“We should be very worried about this issue,” said James Mulvenon, a China analyst at the Rand Corp. think tank who has done extensive studies into Chinese computer capabilities.
Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province, appears to be the driving force behind the Chinese interest in hacking, Mulvenon said. Under one scenario, if China were to make good on its long-standing threat to invade Taiwan, the Chinese military could then seek to deploy widespread computer disruptions against American and Taiwanese military systems to slow any effort by U.S. forces to intervene in Taiwan’s defense, he said.
The issue threatens to inflame tense relations between the United States and the Communist regime in China, relations already frayed by charges and countercharges during the past several years over alleged nuclear, military and political espionage.
Relations hit a low point last year after a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter collided over the South China Sea, killing the Chinese pilot and triggering an international standoff over the return of the Whidbey-based plane’s 24 Navy crew members.
For days, officials in Beijing and Washington traded accusations about the crash and debated what kind of statement of regret the U.S. would sign and China would accept.
China detained the plane’s crew for 11 days and returned the disassembled plane months later.
Recent months have seen a warming in relations as the Bush administration secured China’s cooperation in the war on terrorism. But China has become upset by what it sees as the White House’s increasingly favorable overtures toward Taiwan.
The CIA’s assessment discusses both Taiwan and the United States, revealing that U.S. intelligence officials believe both are targets of the Chinese military.
“The People’s Liberation Army does not yet have the capability to carry out its intended goal of disrupting Taiwanese military and civilian infrastructures or U.S. military logistics using computer virus attacks,” said the CIA’s report, which was included in a broader national security assessment that authorities distributed to intelligence officials.
“China’s virus attack capabilities are similar to those of sophisticated hackers and are limited to temporary disruption of sectors that use the Internet,” the CIA review said. “A Chinese virus attack is capable of reaching e-mail communications, laptops brought into China, and U.S. Internet-based military computers.”
A U.S. intelligence official who was briefed on the issue but asked not to be identified said analysts believe that, although the most sensitive U.S. military databases are secure from hackers and viruses, Internet-based military systems that are used for communications with bases around the world and with outside military vendors could be vulnerable.
“These aren’t the keys to the kingdom we’re talking about,” the official said. “There’s no danger that the Chinese are going to hack into our nuclear launch codes, but there is the danger they could gather useful intelligence from penetrating some of the less sensitive networks that the Department of Defense utilizes all over the world.”