East-Asia-Intel.com: Elite universities team up with PLA for China’s global cyber-espionage offensive — March 27, 2013

http://www.east-asia-intel.com/eai/2013/03_27/1.asp  Elite universities team up with PLA for China’s global cyber-espionage offensiveEast-Asia-Intel.com, March 27, 2013China is the world’s indisputable leading cyber attacker when it comes to stealing other nations’ military, financial, industrial and political information.But that dubious accomplishment would not have been possible without the symbiosis between the People’s Liberation Army, which is the main organizer and operator of cyber espionage, and the nation’s multitude of elite universities whose faculty bodies have many U.S.-trained computer and IT experts.A view of China’s “Unit 61398” outside Shanghai.  ReutersThe recent disclosure by the U.S.-based Internet security firm Mandiant that there was a PLA organization codenamed Unit 61398 that is devoted to cyber espionage came as no surprise to many in the West.However, what did come as a surprise was the concomitant discovery of the intrinsic ties between the PLA’s cyber attacks and China’s computer science departments in many leading universities of the country.Faculty members from these universities routinely sign contracts from the Unit 61398 to work on cyber security projects.Many research papers were located online highlighting how China’s military cyber units could penetrate the Internet. On many occasions, ads posted by Unit 61398 on university job bulletin boards solicit graduates in computer science and Internet security from these elite universities to join the PLA and become members of Unit 61398.Reuters news agency has found papers co-authored by faculty members from the elite Shanghai Jiaotong University and researchers from the PLA’s Unit 61398 on network security and attack detection.One of the researchers was the developer of China’s leading infiltrative cyber-attack platform, who is also the vice present of the Jiaotong University’s School of Information Security Engineering.The case at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University is considered just a tip of the iceberg because virtually every leading computer engineering and Internet development program in the nation has some degree of connection to the PLA’s cyber-espionage enterprise.Largely due to massive Chinese military’s offensive cyber attacks on key U.S. sectors, the Cyber Command has grown rapidly in response to China’s offensives. In fiscal year 2013, its personnel will increase to 5,000, with a much larger budget of $3.4 billion.When it comes to China’s national devotion to cyber-spying, there really is a Military-Academic Complex. GertzFile.comGeoStrategy-Direct.comWorldTribune.Com  COPYRIGHT © 2013     EAST WEST SERVICES, INC.    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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