*This stuff emerges with such regularity that you would think somebody had a calendar program.
*It's pretty common practice for a national espionage apparatus to feed some money and power into deniable civilian groups, but one of these days, those hustlers are gonna think, "Given that we've got all this secret firepower now, why don't we take a big bloody bite out of the hand that feeds us?"
–China Takes Issue With Pentagon Report on Cyber Threat
(August 18 & 19, 2010)
A report from the US military says that China's People's Liberation Army
(PLA) has "information warfare units" that are developing malware to
attack foreign computer systems. The report says that "numerous
computer systems around the world, including those owned by the US
Government, continued to be the target of intrusions that appear to have
originated within the attacks on systems and networks around the world
over the last year appear to originate from within the PRC (People's
Republic of China)." The units include civilian organizations, which
makes it more difficult to establish that the government is responsible
for the attacks. Complicating matters even further is the fact that
there are likely civilian groups in China targeting US networks and it
is difficult to say which groups are acting on their own, and which are
acting on behalf or with the support of the PLA. China says the US
report "ignores the objective truth."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/19/AR2010081904629.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0818/Pentagon-s-China-military-report-ignores-objective-truth-says-China
http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2010_CMPR_Final.pdf
[Editors' Note (Ranum): We have - until very recently, and only after a
great deal of complaining - resisted international calls to demilitarize
cyberspace. We have spent large amounts of money, in fact, preparing
offensive cyberwar, ourselves. It's hypocrisy - we're against
proliferation because we're the biggest proliferators.]
*via SANS
