China Calls For End To 'Cyber War'

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/03/10/china-calls-for-end-to-cyber-war/

 

3/10/2013 @ 12:54PM |3,218 views

China Calls For End To 'Cyber War'

A top official in the Chinese government said Saturday that nations should devise a unified set of rules on cyber attacks instead of fanning the flames of cyber warfare.

China has been blamed for attacks on U.S. media outlets like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal as well as a host of other attacks on government computers. While it is not easy to decipher from where such cyber attacks come from, as those hacking into the victim’s computers are able to do from networks hacked in other countries, China said that it is not engaging in cyber espionage.

At least not officially.

Chinese Military Says Country Not Behind U.S. Cyber Attacks

 

Cyber espionage took center stage in 2010 when the famous Stuxnet worm was discovered by internet security firms to be attacking Iran‘s nuclear power plants. It was believed that a joint U.S.-Israeli effort was behind Stuxnet.

Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab, says cyber warfare and cyber spying between governments is a trend with no end in sight. He has made a name for himself in the past few years promoting intra-governmental collaboration on matters related to internet security.

Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi reiterated this weekend that his country’s military is not behind cyber attacks on Western websites. He called for “rules and cooperation”, instead of a cyberspace “war” or politics-driven smear campaigns, China Daily reported Sunday.
Yang is the highest-level Chinese official so far to respond to the criticism surrounding Chinese hackers attacking U.S. computer systems, which was confirmed by Alexandria, Va. based internet security firm Mandiant last month a Washington Post piece saying they traced a host of cyber attacks to an IP address in Shanghai.

“Those reports may have caught the eye of many people, but they are built on shaky ground,” Yang told reporters. He said governments should do their best to avoid turning the internet into a “another battlefield, or capitalize on virtual reality to interfere in another country’s internal affairs.”

The effort to formulate a worldwide policy for a more regulated Internet failed in Dubai last year after many Western countries said a compromise plan gave too much power to the United Nations.