Nations blame China for recent cyber hackings

As India woke up to the campaign targeted towards mapping and discovering weak points within its IT infrastructure which had been running over the past 18 months, now more nations have come forward questioning China's involvement and for backing the hackers.

As the UN raised the issue in Geneva, US, Belgium, France and Russia have also stated that China is attempting to control the cyberspace "offensively ". The ruling Chinese People's Liberation Army is known to operate highly sophisticated divisions and commands for cyber operations. An official declaration has even set the deadline of 2050 for China to be able to stop any army in its tracks through cyber warfare. The hackers have been mobilized into Unions and Red Alliances with alleged 'official backing.'

China's underlying modus-operandi came to surface in September 2007 when the Chinese military was found to be plotting for a cyber-attack which targeted a Pentagon computer system serving the office of US defense secretary Robert Gates.

Off late, a diplomatic spat has been brewing between Belgian and the Chinese government as Belgian justice minister Jo Vandeurzen claims that attacks against the Belgian Federal Government have originated from China, and are likely to have been sanctioned by the Beijing government.

Belgian minister of foreign affairs Karel De Gucht also told the parliament that his ministry was the subject of "cyber-espionage" by Chinese agents several weeks ago.

The Belgian government speculates that China may be interested in spying on them because NATO and the European Union have headquarters in the country as well as in exploring Belgium's historical connections with Central Africa.

Meanwhile, infiltration into protected information is a critically sensitive matter for India since the information that the Chinese hackers were trying to procure would give China an advantage in any potential conflict.

Security experts fear that apart from giving China a good idea of the content, the hacking also enables them to disable the networks during a conflict. Further the information could be used for battlefield purposes and into designing new weapons and equipment.

With reports published in a national daily, several big attacks have been sourced to China over the last few months including prominent ones on National Informatics Centre (NIC) aimed at the National Security Council (NSC), and on the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).