Cyberespionage: J’Accuse!

China Tradezone provides an update on the Germany-China cyberespionage brouhaha:

Hans Elmar Remberg, vice president of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told a Berlin conference on industrial espionage that his country was involved in “the Chinese cyber war”.

“In our view, state Chinese interests stand behind these digital attacks,” Reuters reported.

“Supporting this view is the intensity, structure and scope of the attacks, and above all the targets, which include authorities and companies.”

I am pleased the Herr Remberg decided to come in from the cold and actually take responsibility for these allegations. He doesn’t provide any proof, at least nothing that was referenced in the article. Unless I see some substantive evidence, I can’t be bothered to believe in this. And I won’t accept the argument that revealing the evidence will “compromise” cyber defenses. They’re mostly commercial products.

Governments may have their fair share of cybersmartypants, but hacking is one area where a billion dollar budget can still be trumped by a crafty individual. And China is full of vulnerable PCs, servers, and devices that can be easily used to mount an attack by said crafty individual. But it’s easier to excuse your own incompetence (I recall the German breach involved some idiot opening an infected email attachment) with the specter of insidious Chinese government agencies than to admit to poor training, inadequate security technology, and a generalized incompetence.

But back to Herr Remberg. He has a theory:

“Across the world the People’s Republic of China is intensively gathering political, military, corporate-strategic and scientific information in order to bridge their technological gaps as quickly as possible,” Remberg said.

I am curious as to what technology gaps China is bridging by stealing. Certainly there are concerns as to sensitive military and dual-use technology, but China is hardly a technology backwater. Maybe the target is maglev train testing protocols?

China’s foreign ministry fired right back:

“I’d like to point out that the German side must make clarifications,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular news briefing.

“We are very confused and resolutely opposed to such accusations.”

…Liu said Germany must be responsible when making such remarks.

“We will make solemn representations to Germany and asked Germany to clarify these things,” he said.

I bet he will. “Solemn representations” and requests for clarifications adds up to a splitting headache for Germany’s ambassador to China. And Mr. Remberg? I don’t think he’ll be invited to the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

Share This