A Curtain Raiser on China's Cyber Warfare

In the last few weeks I have delivered two talks on the political, economic, and military rise of China; one in Hyderabad and the second in Bangalore. In these talks, I spent a considerable amount of time on the massive cyber warfare being waged by China. 



The unsurprising part is that I had delivered similar talks last year too. In all these talks, there were incredulous faces in the audience when I talked about the industrial and military espionage activities of China, right from the beginning of the 1990s. I particularly emphasized on the nefarious role of the Chinese military in the hacking attacks.



I intend to dwell on this issue in a much deeper way with an article under The Explainer series; but that will come next week. The Explainer on China's Cyber Warfare will focus on the following:


• 1990s – Industrial Espionage; 1999 –
Military 

• Red Hackers/Freelancers/Intelligence
Agencies

• Varied agendas/U.S.-India-Japan/Nelson’s Eye

• Decentralized approach/Blurry line

• Operation Aurora/2 top IT schools involved



A few members in the audience even questioned my ideas about the scale of Beijing's hacking attacks. One guy asked that if the scale was so large then why it did not get reported in our mainstream media. 



Hmmm.



For now, I suggest that you read this piece from Mandiant, the organisation that has exposed China's massive cyber espionage units involving the Chinese military. 



Somewhere it is very satisfying for the teacher in me that I have been sharing the right sort of information even though most find it difficult to accept.