Cyber Warfare Advantage: United States < China?

Chinese State hackers have been busy, as usual. Since the 90's, China has been ramping up their cyber abilities, planting seeds for the future in US' and other countries' computer systems. China expects the modern battlefield to be here. Now. Cyber space. 

Today, the Earth got Hacked. 

Reports came flooding in on Friday, and by the time it was over more than 90 countries had critical infrastructure frozen and computer networks forcibly shut down. It is called an extortion spyware program which holds the computer network hostage until a ransom is paid.

The U.K.'s hospital system was shut down. Patients were turned away, and widespread computer and phone networks weren't' working at all. Any non-critical procedures were postponed. In Russia, their Interior Ministry networks were effected. The list goes on, Taiwan, Spain, and mostly limited to FedEx corporate networks the U.S. as well. Chances are the origins of the malicious spyware will be traced back to China. 

China has been the most prolific actor in cyber warfare in the past 10 years. For good reason, in 1998 two Chinese military analysts produced a book detailing how China can enter in a war with the U.S. and not suffer the sever disadvantage of the U.S.'s clearly superior military force. Through the use of cyber warfare hundreds of hacker rooms with thousands of cyber analysts can interrupt the control of computer reliant systems such as the elite carrier groups who roam the oceans. Through cyber warfare, the true capabilities of which we cannot know, it is possible the Chinese have invested in a style of warfare that may cancel out conventional weapons. 

Hactivist groups like Anonymous create chaos. 

North Korea and it's leader, son-of-the-dear-one Kim Jung-un have continued to ratchet up pressure on South Korea. So much so that President Trump has agreed to deploy the THAAD missile system in Seoul, the multi-million populated capital less than 100 miles from North Korea missile and artillery lines. 

Of course, Jung-un and his closely-controlled government have protested this, and through further ballistic missile tests and another nuclear test, have incurred the concerted alarm of it's South Pacific neighbors. In fact, North Korea has attempted to hack into the THAAD system in Seoul. 

N. Korea leader Kim Jung-un reviews a parade

The Cyber threat has been building for some time now. When Google was hacked in 2009 and it's proprietary information stolen, their investigators traced the action back to the Chinese Hainan Island facility.

According to Richard Clarke in his book, Cyber War, "...The extent of Chinese government hacking against U.S., European, and Japanese industries and research facilities is without precedent in the history of espionage. Exabytes of data have been copied from universities, industrial labs, and government facilities bio engineering designs, to nanotechnology, to weapons systems, to everyday industrial products have been taken by the People's Liberation Army and by private hacking groups and given to China, Inc..."

North Korean missile launch March 2017

Files, email accounts and intellectually proprietary source codes had been exposed on, among others, Adobe, Dow Chemical, Northrop Grumman and Google. Subsequently, Google was hacked again just a week ago on May 4, 2017. 

When someone opines why the world is preoccupied with war, the answer is simple: don't be the last one to learn about it. Once the day comes when war is imposed on you, it will be too late. 

Recently Jung-un has made remarks of how DPRK forces will sink American carriers and submarines. This is probably behind his false confidence. 

-katykarter