China has often blamed India for cyber attacks. The latest blame game by China is a ruse to deflect the accusations leveled against it by the U.S., which has gone on record to point out that China was getting ready to create havoc by taking down the power grid, oil pipelines, and water systems in the event of a war over Taiwan.
Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) contends that the goal of cyber warfare is to “weaken, disrupt, or destroy” a targeted nation-state. It involves actions by a nation-state or international organization to attack another nation’s computers or information networks. These actions can include computer viruses or denial-of-service attacks.
Cyber warfare aims to weaken the target country by compromising its core systems. This can include attacks on financial infrastructure, such as the power grid. Attacks on critical infrastructure can cause significant disruption to a community and force a hysterical reaction by its citizens.
Cyber attacks can mean major consequences for human lives by disrupting the flow of energy, water, or food – all of which are “life-sustaining, life-advancing or life-supporting,” said Red Curry, CMO at Tautuk.
According to his brother, Sam Curry, vice president and CISO at Zscaler, the impact a cyber attack can have is bigger than it’s ever been. Red Curry added that critical infrastructure will be targeted more and more in the future to create maximum chaos and disruption.
China
Some of the most destructive cyber attacks since the dawn of the internet took place in 2016. Looking at the recent trends of the past, we can expect this pattern to not only continue but increase in severity. China’s cyber espionage campaigns appear to be more streamlined.
The purpose of these attacks is to mostly hack the networks of the US government and its allies. As per research, 27.24% of cyber-attacks are initiated by China. And according to various estimates, 41% of the world’s cyber attacks trace their genesis back to China.
Last year, ABC News reported that Chinese spies have reportedly stepped up their cyber attacks on networks belonging to the Australian government and individuals in Australia.
USA
At the G20 Summit in China in September 2016, former President Barack Obama said: “The nation he leads has the world’s foremost cyber arsenal in the world.”
This might be true given the sophistication of cyber-attacks allegedly carried out by the US. 17.12% of cyber-attacks are initiated by the US.
As per various estimates, the US accounts for nearly 10% of the world’s malicious digital traffic. It is home to many famous and infamous hackers.
Russia
Nearly 4.3% of all the global attack traffic is generated from Russia. Last year’s DNC hack has placed Russia on our list. Russian hackers are famous worldwide and have a knack for cracking the most secure of networks.
A total of 5.14% of cyber-attacks are initiated by the Russians.
FBI’s Accusations
In a news item of January 31, the New York Times made some sensational disclosures extracted from the horse’s mouth. In testimony before Congress, Christopher A. Wray, F.B.I.’s director, said Beijing was preparing to sow chaos if disputes with the United States flared into conflict.
He said that China was ramping up an extensive hacking operation geared at taking down the United States power grid, oil pipelines, and water systems in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. Appearing before a House subcommittee on China, he offered an alarming assessment of the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts.
It intends to sow confusion, sap the United States’ will to fight, and hamper the American military from deploying resources if the dispute over Taiwan, a major flashpoint between the two superpowers, escalates into a war,
Notably, before his testimony, F.B.I. and Justice Department officials it was revealed that last month, they had obtained a court order that authorized them to gain access to servers infiltrated by Volt Typhoon.
This Beijing-directed hacking network has targeted a range of critical infrastructure systems, often by infiltrating small businesses, contractors, or local government networks.
Hackers for Volt Typhoon compromised hundreds of Cisco and NetGear routers to embed an army of sleeper cells that would be activated in a crisis. In May, U.S. officials warned businesses, local governments, and foreign allies that the group was aiming at “networks across U.S. critical infrastructure sectors” and was likely to apply the same techniques against other countries.
China Passes The Buck
Beijing reacted with counteraccusations that were no less revealing than those with which the FBI charged it. But surprisingly, it has dragged a third party — India — into the fray for reasons best known to it.
Instead of absolving itself powerfully of Washington’s accusations and coming out with a convincing and fulsome rebuttal of the accusations, Beijing directed its ire towards New Delhi as if the accusations had sprung from Raisina Hills and not from the banks of the Potomac.
On February 16, the SCMP published a piece written by one Zhang Tong. He said that a series of cyber attacks originating from India have been highlighted in recent reports by Chinese cyber security firms, with the attacks targeting China and Pakistan.
It reported that one cyber attack on the Chinese military, which was intercepted by a cyber security organization in China in December, was from India. It claimed that the attack bore striking similarities to previous ones in terms of targets and methodologies, suggesting the involvement of the same group.
The group is identified as Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) and has been active for a decade. The author claims the threat was first discovered and named “Bitter” by an American security firm, Forcepoint, and “Manlinghua” by Chinese company Qihoo 360 in 2016.
The author says that cyber security analysts suspect the group’s origins trace back to India based on IP address locations and linguistic patterns observed in the attack. Talking about the links of “Bitter,” the writer connects it to other groups like Patchwork, SideWiinder, and Donot, all supposed to be of Indian origin.
A Beijing-based security expert involved in the investigation said that, on the condition of anonymity, “contrary to popular belief that China’s cyber threats mainly come from the US, professionals in the field point out that a significant number of attacks originate from South Asian countries.”
Amusingly, both China and India have refrained from public condemnation. Neither the Chinese nor Indian foreign ministry has reflected on the subject publicly, though Indian media has occasionally criticized Chinese cyber intrusions, such as a December 2022 report by Outlook India alleging Chinese hackers targeted Indian medical research institutes and power grid infrastructure.
Superpowers and powers with expertise in the cyber security arena all concede that cyber warfare is an extremely dangerous adventure with horrific consequences for the entire mankind.
Yet, there is a mad rush for advancement in bringing annihilation to the globe. A return from the abyss seems inconceivable unless divine dispensation intervenes to save life on this planet.
- OPED By KN Pandita
- Prof. Pandita (Padma Shri) is the former director of the Center of Central Asian Studies at Kashmir University. Views personal of the author.
- Follow EurAsian Times on X (formerly Twitter)
