Inside Cyber Warfare - Jeffrey Carr [153]
* * *
[179] Farzana Shah, “Pakistan: Propaganda and warfare in Cyber World,” The Frontier Post, August 4, 2011, accessed August 31, 2011, http://www.thefrontierpost.com/?p=40162.
[180] Ibid.
People’s Republic of China
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Science and Engineering University is the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) center for information warfare (IW) training.[181] The PRC’s Integrated Network Electronic Warfare (INEW) is the formal IW strategy that places intelligence-gathering responsibilities and network defense on the PLA’s 3rd General Staff Department (Signals Intelligence) and specialized IW militia units. Since 2002, the PLA has created IW militia units that integrate personnel from the military, universities, and private sector information technology companies. Research and development in cyber espionage is considered a focusing strategy, according to the Five-Year Plan (2011–2015) by both the Chinese central government and the PLA.[182]
The Chinese government’s massive efforts to develop cyber warfare capabilities have created a growing cadre of cyber experts. China is increasingly finding that it is difficult to control and harness these experts and hacktivists.[183] Chinese citizens who are designated for cyber warrior training are first sent to military institutions in an attempt to nationalize and promote loyalty within the warriors.[184] In May 2011 China announced that it had established a “Blue Army” division, a cyber command unit of 30 initial members who were recruited from existing PLA soldiers, officers, college students, and experts from the private sector.[185] The unit’s formation contrasts the PLA information warfare concept, which harnesses the hacktivists and existing cyber experts instead of establishing a military operations command.[186] It is likely that the Blue Army division will serve as a coordinating and focusing element to the largely diverse hacktivists networks.
The PRC’s and PLA’s cyber offensive capabilities are slightly divided. The government’s focus on hacktivists and other assets is to further the economic and technological successes through the use of cyber espionage, as well as to quell or silence political dissenters.[187] The military, on the other hand, is more focused on obtaining technology or cyber warfare capabilities to disable enemy communication networks with one swift blow. To obtain this evolving piece of attack code or tools, they have utilized hacktivists and other organic cyber experts to steal or develop these capabilities.[188]
* * *
[181] Deepak Sharma, “China’s Cyber Warfare Capability and India’s Concerns,” Journal of Defence Studies 5, no. 2 (April 2011), accessed August 29, 2011, http://www.idsa.in/system/files/jds_5_2_dsharma.pdf.
[182] Willy Lam, “Beijing Bones up its Cyber-Warfare Capacity,” The Jamestown Foundation: China Brief 10, no. 3 (February 2010), accessed August 30, 2011, http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=36007.
[183] Sean Noonan, “China and its Double-edged Cyber-sword,” Stratfor, December 9, 2010, accessed August 30, 2011, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20101208-china-and-its-double-edged-cyber-sword.
[184] Ella Chou, “US-China Cyber War Scenario in the Eyes of a Chinese Student,” The Atlantic, February 8, 2011, accessed August 30, 2011, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/us-china-cyber-war-scenario-in-the-eyes-of-a-chinese-student/70855/.
[185] Leo Lewis, “China’s Blue Army of 30 computer experts could deploy cyber warfare on foreign powers,” The Australian, May 27, 2011, accessed August 30, 2011, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/chinas-blue-army-could-conduct-cyber-warfare-on-foreign-powers/story-e6frgakx-1226064132826.
[186] Dancho Danchev, “People’s Information Warfare Concept,” Mind Streams of Information Security Knowledge, entry posted October 5, 2011, accessed August 30, 2011, http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/2007/10/peoples-information-warfare-concept.html.