Cyber Warfare or Cyber Theft?

A Recent NY times article, "U.S. Case Offers Glimpse Into China's Hacker Army" by Edward Wong chronicles recent cyber attacks by seemly china based hackers. The basis for this story comes from the recent indictments of 5 Chinese citizens by the United States Justice Department this week for cyber attacks against "prominent American companies." The Justice Department named 5 Chinese men in the indictment as be part of a Chinese military unit specialized in cyber warfare. The Indictments claim this Chinese military unit and specifically these 5 men named in the indictment have actively hacked or sought to hack American companies to presumably steal industry secrets for the benefit of Chinese corporate gain.

 

These cyber assailants are not vilified at home in china as they would be in the United States mind you, they are praised from their dubious actions. In a culture in which the ethics involved in reaching the end goal are trivial, and the only benchmark for success is the marketable end product, these individuals thrive. They are not considered criminals in China but contractors providing a service to those willing to employ them, to which there is no shortage of employers. They receive their technical training from Chinese state funded and operated universities, and when they have acquired the technically skills required the state is more then willing to deploy them in cyber combat against state enemies.  However, when the cyber combat campaign against foreign enemy states ebbs the efforts of these cyber assailants are targeted at foreign corporations and academic targets of opposing view.

 

When the cyber attacks come in the form of assaults upon foreign intelligence and infrastructure targets, the assaults can be in a way justified. Even the Obama administration declares such attacks orchestrated in the guise of national security as "fair play" and legal. However, when the target is a foreign corporation with the sole objective of acquiring commercial trade secrets and other privileged information with the intent of divulging this information to Chinese competitors it boils down to flat out theft. If a thief in the night physically broke into an establishment and stole potentially millions if not billions of dollars, there would not be a debate upon the legality of the action. It would be categorized as the obvious larceny that it is and handled swiftly and judicially. This is not action taken to ensure the national security of China by any stretch of the imagination. It is obvious theft on a grand scale and should not be condoned by a world power of such magnitude.

 

Unfortunately the Chinese government likely does not share my vehement interpretation of these events. Though sponsorship or involvement of the Chinese government in these event is and will likely remain unclear. One thing is surely clear, These criminals will likely not be punished for their crimes. They will likely be praised on yet another successful venture completed and assigned a new target to larceny. One thing is for sure, Beijing will not be detaining these men and if they did extradition to face this U.S. Justice Dept. Indictment is out of the question. We have a better chance perfecting cold fusion or something less likely, seeing an end to Chinese cyber warfare.