<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tr><td valign="top"><div>Leaking details of expensive weapons systems of doubtful effectiveness ,such as ballistic missile defense, the V-22, and the F-35 , to the Chinese could be seen as a way to induce them to waste resources and undermine their economy.</div></td></tr></table> <div id="_origMsg_">
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Art Deco <art.deco.studios@gmail.com>; <br>
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[Vision2020] Time For Legislators With Guts To Fix The Internet <br>
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Tue, May 28, 2013 3:00:51 PM <br>
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<h1>Confidential report lists U.S. weapons system designs compromised by Chinese cyberspies</h1>
<h3>
By <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ellen-nakashima/2011/03/02/ABdt4sM_page.html">Ellen Nakashima</a>, <span class="">Published: May 27</span>
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<p>Designs for many of the nation’s most sensitive advanced weapons
systems have been compromised by Chinese hackers, according to a report
prepared for the Pentagon and to officials from government and the
defense industry.</p>
<p>Among more than two dozen major weapons systems whose designs were
breached were programs critical to U.S. missile defenses and combat
aircraft and ships, according to a previously undisclosed section of a
confidential report prepared for Pentagon leaders by the Defense Science
Board.</p><p>Experts warn that the electronic intrusions gave China
access to advanced technology that could accelerate the development of
its weapons systems and weaken the U.S. military advantage in a future
conflict.</p><p>The Defense Science Board, a senior advisory group made
up of government and civilian experts, did not accuse the Chinese of
stealing the designs. But senior military and industry officials with
knowledge of the breaches said the vast majority were part of a widening
Chinese campaign of espionage against U.S. defense contractors and
government agencies. </p><p>The significance and extent of the targets
help explain why the Obama administration has escalated its warnings to
the Chinese government to stop what Washington sees as rampant
cybertheft. </p><p>In January, the advisory panel warned in <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/ResilientMilitarySystems.CyberThreat.pdf">the public version of its report</a>
that the Pentagon is unprepared to counter a full-scale cyber-conflict.
The list of compromised weapons designs is contained in a confidential
version, and it was provided to The Washington Post. </p><p>Some of the
weapons form the backbone of the Pentagon’s regional missile defense for
Asia, Europe and the Persian Gulf. The designs included those for the
advanced Patriot missile system, known as PAC-3; an Army system for
shooting down ballistic missiles, known as the Terminal High Altitude
Area Defense, or THAAD; and the Navy’s Aegis ballistic-missile defense
system. </p><p>Also identified in the report are vital combat aircraft
and ships, including the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black
Hawk helicopter and the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship, which is
designed to patrol waters close to shore.</p><p>Also on the list is the
most expensive weapons system ever built — the F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter, which is on track to cost about $1.4 trillion. The <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html">2007 hack of that project </a>was reported previously.</p><p>China,
which is pursuing a comprehensive long-term strategy to modernize its
military, is investing in ways to overcome the U.S. military advantage —
and cyber-espionage is seen as a key tool in that effort, the Pentagon
noted this month in a report to Congress on China. For the first time,
the <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-chinese-government-military-behind-cyberspying/2013/05/06/f4851618-b694-11e2-b94c-b684dda07add_story.html">Pentagon specifically named the Chinese government and military</a> as the culprit behind intrusions into government and other computer systems.</p>
<p>As the threat from Chinese cyber-espionage has grown, the administration has become more public with its concerns. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-publicly-calls-on-china-to-stop-commercial-cyber-espionage-theft-of-trade-secrets/2013/03/11/28b21d12-8a82-11e2-a051-6810d606108d_story.html">In a speech in March, Thomas Donilon</a>,
the national security adviser to President Obama, urged China to
control its cyber-activity. In its public criticism, the administration
has avoided identifying the specific targets of hacking.</p><p>But U.S.
officials said several examples were raised privately with senior
Chinese government representatives in a four-hour meeting a year ago.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a
closed meeting, said senior U.S. defense and diplomatic officials
presented the Chinese with case studies detailing the evidence of major
intrusions into U.S. companies, including defense contractors.</p><p>In addition, a recent classified <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://tinyurl.com/c66dlfz">National Intelligence Estimate</a>
on economic cyber-espionage concluded that China was by far the most
active country in stealing intellectual property from U.S. companies.</p><p>The Chinese government insists that it does not conduct cyber-<br>espionage on U.S. agencies or companies, and government spokesmen often complain that Beijing is a victim of U.S. cyberattacks.</p>
<p>Obama is expected to raise the issue when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month in California. </p><p>A
spokesman for the Pentagon declined to discuss the list from the
science board’s report. But the spokesman, who was not authorized to
speak on the record, said in an e-mail, “The Department of Defense has
growing concerns about the global threat to economic and national
security from persistent cyber-intrusions aimed at the theft of
intellectual property, trade secrets and commercial data, which
threatens the competitive edge of U.S. businesses like those in the
Defense Industrial Base.”</p><p>The confidential list of compromised
weapons system designs and technologies represents the clearest look at
what the Chinese are suspected of targeting. When the list was read to
independent defense experts, they said they were shocked by the extent
of the cyber-espionage and the potential for compromising U.S. defenses.</p><p>“That’s
staggering,” said Mark Stokes, executive director of the Project 2049
Institute, a think tank that focuses on Asia security issues. “These are
all very critical weapons systems, critical to our national security.
When I hear this in totality, it’s breathtaking.”</p><p>The experts said
the cybertheft creates three major problems. First, access to advanced
U.S. designs gives China an immediate operational edge that could be
exploited in a conflict. Second, it accelerates China’s acquisition of
advanced military technology and saves billions in development costs.
And third, the U.S. designs can be used to benefit China’s own defense
industry. There are long-standing suspicions that China’s theft of
designs for the F-35 fighter allowed Beijing to develop its version much
faster.</p><p>“You’ve seen significant improvements in Chinese military
capabilities through their willingness to spend, their acquisitions of
advanced Russian weapons, and from their cyber-espionage campaign,” said
James A. Lewis, a cyber-policy expert at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. “Ten years ago, I used to call the PLA [People’s
Liberation Army] the world’s largest open-air military museum. I can’t
say that now.”</p><p>The public version of the science board report
noted that such cyber-espionage and cyber-sabotage could impose “severe
consequences for U.S. forces engaged in combat.” Those consequences
could include severed communication links critical to the operation of
U.S. forces. Data corruption could misdirect U.S. operations. Weapons
could fail to operate as intended. Planes, satellites or drones could
crash, the report said. </p><p>In other words, Stokes said, “if they
have a better sense of a THAAD design or PAC-3 design, then that
increases the potential of their ballistic missiles being able to
penetrate our or our allies’ missile defenses.”</p><p>Winslow T.
Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project
on Government Oversight, made a similar point. “If they got into the
combat systems, it enables them to understand it to be able to jam it or
otherwise disable it,” he said. “If they’ve got into the basic
algorithms for the missile and how they behave, somebody better get out a
clean piece of paper and start to design all over again.”</p><p>The
list did not describe the extent or timing of the penetrations. Nor did
it say whether the theft occurred through the computer networks of the
U.S. government, defense contractors or subcontractors. </p><p>Privately,
U.S. officials say that senior Pentagon officials are frustrated by the
scale of cybertheft from defense contractors, who routinely handle
sensitive classified data. The officials said concerns have been
expressed by <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gen-martin-dempsey/gIQA3FZdKP_topic.html">Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff</a>, and <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/adm-james-a-winnefeld-jr/gIQAhRhSKP_topic.html">Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., the vice chairman</a>, as well as <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gen-keith-b-alexander/gIQA7gFTKP_topic.html">Gen. Keith Alexander</a>, director of the National Security Agency. </p>
<p>“In
many cases, they don’t know they’ve been hacked until the FBI comes
knocking on their door,” said a senior military official who was not
authorized to speak on the record. “This is billions of dollars of
combat advantage for China. They’ve just saved themselves 25 years of
research and development. It’s nuts.”</p><p>In an attempt to combat the
problem, the Pentagon launched a pilot program two years ago to help the
defense industry shore up its computer defenses, allowing the companies
to use classified threat data from the National Security Agency to
screen their networks for malware. The Chinese began to focus on
subcontractors, and now the government is in the process of expanding
the sharing of threat data to more defense contractors and other
industries.</p><p>An effort to change defense contracting rules to
require companies to secure their networks or risk losing Pentagon
business stalled last year. But the 2013 Defense Authorization Act has a
provision that requires defense contractors holding classified
clearances to report intrusions into their networks and allow access to
government investigators to analyze the breach.</p><p>The systems on the science board’s list are built by a variety of top defense contractors, including <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://washpost.bloomberg.com/marketnews/stockdetail/?symbol=BA">Boeing</a>, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://washpost.bloomberg.com/marketnews/stockdetail/?symbol=LMT">Lockheed Martin</a>, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://washpost.bloomberg.com/marketnews/stockdetail/?symbol=RTN">Raytheon</a> and <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://washpost.bloomberg.com/market-news/stockdetail?symbol=NOC:US">Northrop Grumman</a>. None of the companies would comment about whether their systems have been breached. </p>
<p>But
Northrop Grumman spokesman Randy Belote acknowledged the company “is
experiencing greater numbers of attempts to penetrate its computer
networks” and said the firm is “vigilant” about protecting its networks.</p><p>A
Lockheed Martin official said the firm is “spending more time helping
deal with attacks on the supply chain” of partners, subcontractors and
suppliers than dealing with attacks directly against the company. “For
now, our defenses are strong enough to counter the threat, and many
attackers know that, so they go after suppliers. But of course they are
always trying to develop new ways to attack.”</p><p>The Defense Science
Board report also listed broad technologies that have been compromised,
such as drone video systems, nanotechnology, tactical data links and
electronic warfare systems — all areas where the Pentagon and Chinese
military are investing heavily. </p><p>“Put all that together — the design compromises and the technology theft — and it’s pretty significant,” Stokes said.</p><p>
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank" href="javascript:return">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br>
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