Agence France-Presse, Several nations and groups are trying to break into the U.S. military’s computer system, the Pentagon said September 4 after reports China’s military had successfully hacked into the network.
The Chinese military’s cyberattack was carried out in June following months of efforts, the London-based Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing unnamed current and former U.S. officials.
Officials had told the paper the attack was by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and that it led to the shutdown of a computer system serving the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Patrick Ryder, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman, declined to comment on the reported Chinese attack but said the Pentagon “aggressively monitors its networks for intrusions and has appropriate procedures to address” them.
“We know that a number of nations and groups are actively developing these capabilities,” he told AFP.
“We have seen attempts by a variety of state- and nonstate-sponsored organizations to gain unauthorized access to, or otherwise degrade, [Department of Defense] information systems,” he said without identifying them.
Ryder said the department would not comment specifically on investigations underway or incidents for obvious reasons.
It also would not discuss details of the potential impact to its networks, operations or protection efforts and strategies.
Without referring to the Chinese attack, Ryder said that late last spring — around the time the reported Chinese military hacking took place — the “unclassified” e-mail system at Gates’ office was briefly taken offline due to a “detected penetration.”
“All precautionary measures were taken, and the system was restored to service soon afterward,” he said.
The department, he said, had back-up systems in place, and there was no damage done to its operations.
“There were some minor administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences.”
One senior U.S. official said the Pentagon pinpointed the exact origin of the attack, the Financial Times reported.
“The PLA has demonstrated the ability to conduct attacks that disable our system,” the paper quoted a former U.S. official as saying.
While denying the accusations, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu in Beijing said there were some in the U.S. who were seeking to undermine improving Sino-U.S. military relations.
Reports of China hacking into German government systems were also raised last week between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The German weekly Der Spiegel reported that espionage programs traced to the PLA had been detected in computer systems at Merkel’s office, the foreign ministry and other government agencies in Berlin.
