"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle"
- Sun Tzu
The People's Republic of China (PRC) may be an emerging global power economically but its military lacks force projection beyond the Asia Pacific region. Its traditional military hardware is one to three generations behind the US and Russia. In light of these deficiencies, the Chinese believe that cyber warfare will provide China with an asymmetric advantage to deter aggression from stronger military powers as they catch up with traditional military capabilities. Cyber warfare would also allow China to leapfrog by means of technology transfer and exploiting adversary weaknesses. An analysis of Chinese cyber warfare capability would have to address three primary questions: What is China's current military cyber warfare capability? How would cyber warfare allow China to seriously advance its strategic abilities? And what is the evidence that China is headed in a cyber warfare direction?
China's resolve to protect its information and communication systems is a "high priority" among PLA strategists. The PLA has been investing in developing electronic countermeasures, suitable defenses against cyber attack and network operations involving computers. China's CNO (computer network operations) includes all facets and methods of computer network attack, computer network exploitation techniques and computer network defense techniques. The PLA has visualised CNO as critical to achieving 'electromagetic dominance' early in the conflict. However, there is no evidence of existence of a formal CNO doctrine. PLA theorists have coined the term 'Integrated Network Electronic Warfare' to address the use of electronic warfare, CNO and kinetic strikes to disrupt battlefield network information systems that support an adversary's war fighting and power projection capabilities. The PLA has formed information warfare units, tasked to develop computer viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks, as well as develop tactics and measures to protect friendly computer systems and networks. From the year 2005, the PLA has felt of need of integrating offensive CNO into its exercises, primarily in first strikes against enemy networks.
The Chinese consider Information Warfare (IW) as an assassin's mace which can be used to defeat superior with the inferior. Western concepts of Information Warfare have been suitably modified using traditional Chinese military thought. They place due emphasis on the psychological component of IW in order to shape the perceptions and belief system of the adversary. PLA has been practicing Integrated Network Electronic Warfare to disrupt the adversary's sensor-decision maker-shooter links. In their IW exercises, India has been included as one of the target countries. PLA's Information Warfare capabilities are growing and they have ambitious plans in this field.
China is seriously attempting Cyberspace Dominance to bridge its technological gap existing in military hardware. A recently-released Pentagon report on Chinese military development said Beijing is crafting an aggressive computer network operations strategy that the People's Liberation Army "sees as critical to achieving 'electromagnetic dominance' early in a conflict."
No other country in this world is involved, in the kind of clandestine cyber activities as the Chinese do. Canadian researchers discovered the so-called GhostNet spy network when the Dalai Lama's organization asked them to examine its computers for harmful software. However the Canadian researchers were not clear whether the hacking was government supported. But they did conclude that GhostNet's servers are almost exclusively located in China, and its targets are political, including NATO, the Indian Embassy in Washington and Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels and London. As expected, Beijing officials denied any involvement in the electronic spy ring dubbed "GhostNet," which had infiltrated more than 1,000 computers around the world and has been linked to computers in China.
Chinese are equally addressing the IT hardware industry. Dr N. Seshagiri, architect and member convenor of our Prime Minister's Task Force, has stated the Chinese model of IT industry is exemplary, where due heed has been paid to the hardware sector and software sector and, as a matter of fact, China poses a serious threat to Indian software too, and may catch up once the Chinese enhance their software sector [1] .
China is moving aggressively toward incorporating cyber warfare into its military lexicon, organization, training, and doctrine. In fact, if a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is defined as a significant change in technology taken advantage of by comparable changes in military training, organization, and doctrine, then perhaps China of all nations is experiencing a true RMA in cyberspace. Moreover, China's warfare development has [caused] some U.S. military leaders to express concern. The Chinese concept of cyber warfare incorporates unique Chinese views of warfare based around the People's War concept (modern) and the 36 Stratagems (ancient). Both are indigenous views of how to wage war at the strategic, operational, and tactical level. China also is heavily influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideology regarding warfare. Much of its approach has to do with an emphasis on deception, knowledge-style war, and seeking asymmetric advantages over an adversary. Cyber warfare is seen as a "transformation from the mechanized warfare of the industrial age to . . . a war of decisions and control, a war of knowledge, and a war of intellect." China is pursuing the concept of a Net Force (battalion size), which would consist of a strong reserve force of computer experts trained at a number of universities, academies, and training centers.
Several large annual training exercises have already taken place since 1997. The Chinese have placed significant emphasis on training younger persons for these tasks.
The Chinese are actively preparing to fight in intensive information warfare environments. In 2006, more than 8,000 People's Liberation Army personnel took part in a major military exercise which included electronic warfare troops. The 12-day drill, dubbed Vanguard-206B, had among its aims, rooting out any existing problems among Chinese troops by exposing them to the most difficult electromagnetic environment. Zeng Weihua, a member of the exercise team stated "the application of information technology is the main purpose of this drill" calling the electromagnetic environment the
fifth dimension of warfare and the basis of military actions in modern times. "We want the troops participating in the drill to know that defeat in information techniques means defeat in actual combat," he said. China continues to sharpen its sword in the cyberspace realm, and the US must begin to actively defend itself today to be able to counter this threat. China is a major manufacturer of both computer hardware and software, with the US increasingly reliant on the components it produces. This raises the specter of the possibility of Asian nations using the manufacturing process as an avenue to launch future cyber attacks against the U.S.
China's CNO concepts include computer network attack, computer network defense, and computer network exploitation. The PLA sees CNO as critical to achieving 'electromagnetic dominance' early in a conflict. Although there is no evidence of a formal Chinese CNO doctrine, PLA theorists have coined the term 'Integrated Network Electronic Warfare' to prescribe the use of electronic warfare, CNO, and kinetic strikes to disrupt battlefield network information systems. The PLA has established information warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks, and tactics and measures to protect friendly computer systems and networks. In 2005, the PLA began to incorporate offensive CNO into its exercises, primarily in first strikes against enemy networks [2] .
China's reserve forces are now being armed with IW/IO missions and have become the high-tech link in the country's people's war theory. In the past, reserve forces' planned role in a people's war was supporting PLA forces. . . . Today's reserve forces can do something even the PLA could not for many years-reach out and touch someone continents away with electronic and information weapons. Properly targeted electronic attacks could be as devastating to a country's economy as damage inflicted by an intercontinental missile.
Chinese cyber activity is carried out round the clock. A Pentagon report has mentioned that the Chinese hackers keep mapping US infrastructure, such as the electrical grid and are attempting to seed time bomb style viruses in the US power grid that could one day plunge major cities into chaos.
The Pentagon report states, Beijing's plan on the long run is to establish "electronic dominance" over it s global rivals by 2050, particularly the United States, Britain, Russia and South Korea. Also China's military regards offensive computer operations as "critical to seize the initiative" in the early stages of a war. The PLA hackers produced a "virtual guidebook for electronic warfare and jamming" after studying NATO and US manuals on military tactics, the report said. The Pentagon logged more than 79,000 attempted intrusions in 2005, of which about 1,300 succeeded.
India is not immune to China's cyber warfare army. Over the past couple of years, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks, both government and private, showing its intent and capability. These attacks are not generic but far more sophisticated and preplanned. The Chinese network assault is aimed at constantly scanning and mapping India's official networks. This gives them a very good idea of not only the content but also of how to disable the networks or distract them during a conflict.
This strategy is considered, China's way of gaining "an asymmetrical advantage" over a potential adversary. The big attacks that were traced back to have originated from China in the recent past, included an attack on NIC (National Informatics Centre), which was aimed at the National Security Council, and on the MEA.
There are three main weapons which are primarily used by the Chinese against Indian networks, viz., Botnets, Key loggers and passive mapping of networks. Chinese hackers are acknowledged experts in setting up Botnets, shortly called BOTS. A BOT is a parasite program embedded in a network, which hijacks the network and makes other computers act according to its wishes, which, in turn, are controlled by "external" forces. The controlled computers are known as "zombies" in the language of cyber security, and are a key aspect in cyber warfare. According to official sources, there are close to 50,000 BOTS in India at present - and these are "operational" figures. What is the danger? Simply put, the danger is that at the appointed time, these "external" controllers of BOTNETS will command the networks, through the zombies, to move them at will. The point here is that there are internal networks in India that are controlled from outside - a sort of cyberspace fifth column. Hence, the need for a more aggressive strategy.
The Chinese are believed to follow certain strategies to achieve info dominance which include [3] :
Jamming or sabotaging an enemy's information or information system.
Sabotaging an enemy's overall information operational structure.
Weakening an enemy's information fighting capacity.
Giving an enemy a false impression and launching surprise information attack on him at the same time.
The Chinese also believe in the concept of integrating military and civilian information fighting forces. The Chinese leadership believes that information systems offer more modes for people to take part in IO and serve as a major auxiliary information fighting force in a future information war. Integrating civilian and military specialists will breathe new life into Mao Zedong's theory of people's war. Chinese IW specialist General Wang Pufeng first noted this condition in 1995 [4] .
