China Attacks USA 4 years ago

Four (4) years ago Scientific America wrote an article about “China Cyber Attacks Signal New Battlefield is Online”. In 2011 we have seen a surge in China’s hacking but why did we not prepare for this when we knew about it for so long. In 2007 they hacked the UK, France and the US. In the article it stated, “China’s military goals are to improve its ability to wage information warfare”. See China Cyber Timeline.

The Chinese were ahead of us back in 2007 and we did nothing about our cyber security. We are arresting young people with no criminal records living in the basements of mom and dad for hacking. How many Chinese have we arrested for hacking, what’s our US-China Trade Statistics? US-China -273.1?  I understand in 2007 we were fighting a war to stop Iraq from deploying WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction). 

We found no WMD in Iraq, but the Chinese were working on offensive cyber weapons to cripple business, communication, power grids and financial services in the USA and this cyber weapon is not classified as a WMD.

Let me get it straight the Chinese have been working in cyberspace since 2007 to learn how to re-route the world’s internet traffic thru it’s borders and steal terra-bytes of data. While we develop a kill switch to cut off the entire Internet by the President. I understand KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) If someone is attacking you thru cyberspace we simply kill all the connection to the outside world. Quarantine the infected systems and then reboot and the USA is back online, cut of from the rest of the world an isolationist dream. This sounds so much like the cold-war fatalistic dogma.

why_hackers_attack_diagram

We can do better than this and everyone can help. If we want to stay on top of cyberspace we need a baseline security standard to be applied to all .gov .edu and all critical C&C (Command & Control) infrastructure. Once the baseline is set we need to adapt and be proactive in our cyber security to be changed quickly to be adaptable to new threats. We need to develop cyber-monitoring capabilities to be able to see cyber attack vector profiles and react quickly. We also need a National disaster recovery plan to ensure recovery in case of an attack. I might ad a cyber forensic team to analyze the attacks and find the bad guys. Last but not least a comprehensive plan to go after the Nation, State, group, corporation or individuals that caused us harm.

Most of this technology exist a lot of it is open-source (free) with a few modifications it can provide a basic infrastructure framework to build on. We need to break the ties to political special interest government contracts to corporation. We need to be adaptable our technology to the changing cyber sphere faster that we have been. We do this by training our future cyber warrior with programs like the Air Force Cyber Patriot Program. There are 10 of thousans if not more of security savvy people here in the good old USA. These people have no real certificate or college degree in Information Security (but who reallybut they know hacking and security. I bet they would volunteer to help America build the tools and infrastructure that’s needed. You have no idea what the open-source community can do, when you get the best geeks in the country to solve a problem.

Once we have everything in place and it works, let’s share the basic model with the world. Let’s prove democracy in cyberspace can work. Let’s show the world we are leaders again. America is still one of the leaders of the free world, let’s work together in cyberspace and help cyber freedom-free speech democracy become real.

Abraham Lincoln said ”of the people, by the people and for the people” It worked for America why not apply this right to “Cyberspace”.

The Arab Spring this year was history the first cyber revolution. The Libyan people have been freed from tyranny and unjust at the hands of Gaddafi without a conventional army, it has change the world. The people of the Arab States with the use of cyberspace, Twitter, Facebook, Crowd Map, computers, game console’s, cell phones, satellites and other technology made their voices heard. The dreamers that created social networks companies must feel very proud they have changed the world as we know it. Does anyone know how many lives were saved during the first cyber revolution? The destruction of conventional modern war even an internal revolution leaves scars on the country, infrastructure but most important, it leaves a scar on the people and children’s very soul. I know I was one. Our technology, cyberspace, the Internet, the Web saved a generation of children from the cruelty and horrors of war. We American should be proud of the world we help create we saved lives. We also scared the people in power. When a regiene is toppeled by people using nothing more than a cell phones leaders get a little bit worried and maybe the’ll do a better job. 

As I watch the political debate about the Debt Ceiling Bill and the lack of do nothing but toot my own “political” horn. This political game is why the Chinese are almost ahead of us in cyber space and stealing our stuff and manufacturing electronic components with backdoor to the Internet. Wake up American let’s educate our public officials to the freedom of speech on the Internet, lets VOTE. Let’s make sure our Senators and Congressman understand and educate them on Cyber Security (I can supply some links –write me). I’m a veteran and I don’t like wars, but if you’re going to put me in the warzone (Let me borrow this from Ms. Palin) “Don’t Retreat, Instead Reload”. Civilian Militia now live in Cyberspace look at the Jester’s war against Lulzsec the current  Hacktivist cyber war. (Ex-Military “Good Hacker” Identifies LulzSec Leader “Sabu”). This war is live on social networks feeding news organizations around the world. LOL  

Cyberspace belongs to the people. We the people need to keep it free and open, let’s not wait another 4 years to be better at information warfare.

My 2© cents – gatoMalo_at_uscyberlabs_dot_com

http://USCyberLabs.com/blog/

http://ChinaCyberWarfare.wordpress.com

http://HacktivistBlog.wordpress.com/

via China’s Cyber Attacks Signal New Battlefield Is Online: Scientific American.2007

via US Cyber Labs – Blog.