Defense: America has been under nearly continuous attack for five years, yet we’ve heard nary a peep about it. The reason? The attack is conducted by computers, not arms. Is this an act of war? And, if so, who’s behind it?
A new report from the California-based security company McAfee says that a “state actor” is probably the source of the attacks on the U.S. and a host of other governments and international agencies, including Taiwan, India, Canada, the Olympics, the U.N. and the IMF, not to mention a number of private high-tech and defense firms.
“Even we were surprised by the enormous diversity of the victim organizations and were taken aback by the audacity of the perpetrators,” said the report’s author, McAfee Vice President Dmitri Alperovitch.
But don’t be deceived by that word “diversity.” A chart with the report shows that the overwhelming majority of targets were in the U.S. — 49 cyber targets here vs. 23 in the rest of the world.
So who’s the culprit? It’s pretty clear that China has both the means and the motive. And analysts say a lot of the hard evidence points to that nation.
Shouldn’t our government be ringing the bell on this growing threat? Shouldn’t it be a part of our ongoing talks with China? After all, these attacks have been going on for at least half a decade. More
