By Cliff Montgomery – May 28th, 2013
Computer hackers in China have accessed the designs for a large number of America’s most sensitive weapons systems, The Washington Post declared yesterday.
“Among more than two dozen major weapons systems whose designs were breached were programs critical to U.S. missile defenses and combat aircraft and ships,” the Post article stated.
The newspaper’s reporters discovered the matter in “a previously undisclosed section of a confidential report prepared for Pentagon leaders by the Defense Science Board,” which “was provided to The Washington Post.”
The Defense Science Board (DSB) “is a Federal Advisory Committee established to provide independent advice to the Secretary of Defense,” according to the publicly-available version of the study. The DSB is peopled by federal and war industry experts.
Among other matters, Chinese hackers have obtained designs for U.S. missile defense systems, combat ships and warplanes, according to data in the confidential DSB report which was provided to the Post.
The U.S. weapon system designs known to have been accessed by Chinese hackers include the Navy’s AEGIS ballistic-missile defense system, the THAAD anti-missile system of the U.S. Army and the PAC-3 advanced Patriot missile systems, stated The Washington Post.
Chinese hackers also have accessed the designs of such aerial warcraft and combat ships as the Black Hawk helicopter, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey aircraft and the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship, according to the Post.
A publicly-available version of the DSB study, released in January, declared that federal officials are unprepared for an all-out cyber attack.
A Defense Department spokesman today told BCC News that such Chinese hacker “intrusions” have had no substantial effect on the Pentagon’s technological superiority.
Defense Department officials have “full confidence in our weapons platforms,” Pentagon spokesman George Little declared in a statement.
“The Department of Defense takes the threat of cyber espionage and cyber security very seriously,” continued the Pentagon statement, “which is why we have taken a number of steps to increase funding to strengthen our capabilities.”
“Suggestions that cyber intrusions have somehow led to the erosion of our capabilities or technological edge are incorrect,” maintained the Pentagon spokesman.
But a chorus of experts and others in the know counter that a compromised war system is by definition a weakened system.
A Defense Department spokesman admitted off the record to The Washington Post that the Pentagon is worried about “persistent cyber-intrusions aimed at the theft of intellectual property, trade secrets and commercial data, which threatens the competitive edge of U.S. businesses like those in the Defense Industrial Base.”
The publicly available version of the DSB study pointed out that cyber-sabotage and cyber-espionage might have “severe consequences for U.S. forces engaged in combat.”
“Nearly every conceivable component within DoD [Department of Defense] is networked,” stated the publicly available version of the DSB report. “These networked systems and components are inextricably linked to the Department’s ability to project military force and the associated mission assurance.
“Yet, DoD’s networks are built on inherently insecure architectures that are composed of, and increasingly using, foreign parts,” the DSB report deftly pointed out.
“While DoD takes great care to secure the use and operation of the ‘hardware’ of its weapon systems, the same level of resource and attention is not spent on the complex network of information technology (IT) systems that are used to support and operate those weapons or critical IT capabilities embedded within them.
“DoD’s dependence on this vulnerable technology is a magnet to U.S. opponents,” continued the DSB study. “In fact, DoD and its contractor base have already sustained staggering losses of system design information incorporating decades of combat knowledge and experience that provide adversaries insight to technical designs and system use.
“Despite numerous DoD actions, efforts are fragmented, and the Department is not currently prepared to effectively mitigate this threat,” added the DSB report.
Those outside the federal government discuss the matter in even stronger terms.
“These are all very critical weapons systems, critical to our national security. When I hear this in totality, it’s breathtaking,” declared Mark Stokes, who serves as executive director of the Project 2049 Institute – a U.S. think tank concerned with the Asia-Pacific region – to The Washington Post.
Perhaps Winslow Wheeler – who serves as the Straus Military Reform Project director at the Project On Government Oversight, a leading federal watchdog – put it best.
“If they got into the combat systems, it enables them to understand it to be able to jam it or otherwise disable it,” Wheeler told The Washington Post.
“If they’ve got into the basic algorithms for the missile and how they behave, somebody better get out a clean piece of paper and start to design all over again,” added Wheeler.
