U.S. weapon designs ‘compromised’ by hackers from China

 

 

BY BY TOM PHILLIPS, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MAY 28, 2013

 

 

 

U.S. air force A-10 attack aircraft wait to take off on the runway Tuesday during a military exercise at the Osan U.S. Air Base in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, South Korea. Designs for some of America’s most important and sensitive weapons systems have been “compromised” by Chinese hackers, according to a confidential report.

Photograph by: Bae Jung-hyun , AP

Designs for some of America’s most important and sensitive weapons systems have been “compromised” by Chinese hackers, according to a confidential report.

More than two dozen key weapons systems had been affected, including missile defences, fighter jets, helicopters and navy vessels, the report said. Among those listed are the advanced Patriot missile system, or PAC-3, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the Black Hawk helicopter and the V-22 Osprey, which is able to perform vertical takeoffs and landings.

It was not clear from the report, extracts of which were published by the Washington Post, when or how the designs had been compromised.

Its authors — the Defence Science Board, an influential advisory body — stopped short of accusing the Chinese government of attempting to steal the information.

But senior military sources pointed the finger directly at Beijing, saying the security breaches were part of a “widening Chinese campaign of espionage against US defence contractors and government agencies”.

Mark Stokes, the executive director of the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank that focuses on Asia security issues, described the list of affected systems as “staggering”.

“These are all very critical weapons systems, critical to our national security. When I hear this in totality, it’s breathtaking,” he told the newspaper.

A senior military official who declined to be named added: “This is billions of dollars of combat advantage for China. They’ve just saved themselves 25 years of research and development. It’s nuts.”

China dismissed the report as groundless.

In March, Thomas Donilon, Barack Obama’s security adviser, said “cyber-intrusions” had reached an “unprecedented scale” and took the unusual step of publicly calling on Beijing to “take serious steps to investigate” allegations about the hacking of US interests.

On Monday, Donilon met Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, in Beijing ahead of a two-day summit between Xi and President Obama that will start in California on June 7.

Donilon reportedly told Xi that Obama was “firmly committed to building a relationship defined by higher levels of practical cooperation and greater levels of trust, while managing whatever differences and disagreements might arise between us”.

China’s state-run media quoted Xi as saying that US-China relations were at a “critical juncture”. The White House confirmed that cyber-security would be on the agenda when the two leaders meet next month.

Separately, on Monday, Australia’s ABC Television claimed that Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints for the new pounds 402 million headquarters of the country’s domestic spy agency.

When asked about the report, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “China pays high attention to the cyber-security issue and is firmly opposed to all forms of hacker attacks.”

China has repeatedly denied involvement in cyber attacks on foreign companies and governments.

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