American website Register.com, a domain name registrar, was hacked recently with the FBI focusing its investigation on possible Chinese Military involvement.
In the 80’s it was the USA against the USSR. Espionage being the name of the game, with each super power looking over their shoulder, paranoid and untrusting of each other. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, America has gained a new adversary in China. Another communist Super Power prepared to give as much as they can take.
When asked about it by Reuters, the Chinese Ministry firmly denied any involvement, hitting the proverbial ball back into the court of the USA, declaring that Uncle Sam needs to answer for all their internet surveillance activities over the years. What exactly the People Republic’s intention with Register.com’s data is anybody’s guess but the hacking is suspected to have gone on for over a year. It’s worth mentioning, that the US and China are often flinging accusations at each other about information breaches.
The geopolitical landscape has changed since the era of Reagan and Gorbachev with electronic information interception being the prerogative. Once upon a time you had to install a trained asset into the fabric of the institution you were trying to steal from, this asset had to work for years before afforded any trust to handle sensitive “documentation”, all of which can now be done by a teenager sitting behind a desk. Information breaching is suspected to be so prevalent that it has created a segmentation in the Cyber Security market, with indigenous Internet Security firms providing hacker data to their respective governments first before the general public; FireEye to the US, FOX-IT to the Dutch, Kaspersky Lab to Russia. Digital warfare is a reality and when you put into perspective that approximately 95% of the world’s currency is digital, the old adage that prevention is better than cure rings loudly in the ears of officials.
The Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning incidents have to be treated separately as we need to distinguish the difference between leaks and information trespassers. Leaks can be dealt with legally as proved by Manning’s 30 year sentence. Trespassers who belong to foreign governments however, are a much harder egg shell to navigate often decomposing into a “he said, she said” scenario. I shudder to think of the day when the unlawful entry to information that might ignite a physical war rather than an electronic one.