China considers cybersecurity a primary need

China calls for stronger cybersecurity to respond the aggressive cyber-war conducted against its systems by Western countries.

It’s not a mystery, China is within those countries that most of all are investing to improve cyber capabilities and strengthen its leadership in the cyber space. According to state media broadcasters Chinese Government will continue to invest to reinforce cyber security of software used inside the country. The Government of Beijing aim to conduct the “world’s largest military seeks to shore up potential technological weaknesses” as explained by the Reuters agency in a blog post. Information security is a primary goal for the Government which intend to sustain the development of autochthonous software that makes indipendent the country from Western companies that could support cyber strategies of  their governmenys. 

“Information security must be considered an underlying project in military battle preparedness,” the official People’s Liberation Army Daily said. “We will strongly advance the domestic and independent building of programs, and strengthen the foundations of our information security,” it added.

The recent revelations on the surveillance activities conducted by the Five Eyes, in particular by the NSA, and on the alleged support offered by private foreign companies is causing a significant reduction of sales within the China for products with high technological content and manufactured in the west. The Chinese Government afraid the presence of backdoor and any other implants used by foreign governments to spy on internal affairs, cyber espionage is major concerns for the Government of Beijing.

State media are particularly critical with the aggressive and invasive US cyber strategy revealed by documents disclosed by contractor Edward Snowden over the last year.

China and US anyway continuosly exchange mutual accusation of espionage, on monthly bases we read about new APTs groups, discovered by Western security firms, which conduct hacking campaign against networks and systems worldwide.

In May the US grand jury indicted five PLA military officers on charges they hacked into American organizations for intellectual property, of course the Chinese government has dedined any charges.

A few days ago, The FBI chief reported to CBS television’s “60 Minutes” program China topped the list of countries seeking to syphon sensitive data from US companies, highlighting that also SMBs are daily targeted by the foreign hackers.

“There are two kinds of big companies in the United States,” Comey said. “There are those who’ve been hacked by the Chinese, and those who don’t know they’ve been hacked by the Chinese.” Annual losses from cyber-attacks launched from China were “impossible to count,” Comey said, but measured in “billions.”

Welcome in the cyber era!

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs –  China, cyber warfare)