nage and hacker motivation remains questionable, with valid suspicion arising from various circumstances and suspected future implications. Legitimate concerns remain over what China’s cyber attacks and preemptive measures against U.S. government and economic institutions. In many cases of cyber intrusion, backdoors are left on computers, and tens of thousands of U.S. computers today have such vulnerabilities and are largely unaware of such exploitation.A The U.S. should be cautiously worried about China’s increasing cyber warfare threat. It remains to be seen whether current security measures can protect the U.S. as China continues to exploit U.S. companies’ zero-day vulnerabilities and engages in cyber espionage against critical systems. Regarding cyber attacks, NSA Director Rogers recently warned that it “is only a matter of when, not if, that we are going to see something traumatic.” America’s heavy reliance on power grids and online network connectivity makes the U.S. government and economy liable to many vulnerabilities. Supportively, cyber expert Caroline Baylon (Chatham House) recently argued that security
costs money, and “it wouldn’t be possible or practical to defend against everything, financially or otherwise”.44 In combatting China’s threat of cyber warfare, it is imperative that the U.S. develops realistic and applicable solutions to protect as much U.S. government installations and economic infrastructure as possible. The past decade has witnessed China’s rising threat of cyber warfare capabilities, with particular regard to an increase in attacks on U.S. government and military departments, the threatening advancement of China’s asymmetric cyber military capabilities, and the acquisition of American intellectual capital and corporate infrastructure via economic cyber espionage. The PRC’s emphasis on Informationalization has raised valid concerns as U.S. cyber security firms report on the growing threat of Chinese attacks. Many attacks are state sponsored, such as those of PLA Unit 61398. Others are likely perpetrated by independent hacking groups working for material advancement. U.S. cyber watchdogs, such as Mandiant and Akamai Technologies have emphasized the undeniably prodigious capabilities of the People’s
A: In cyber context, a backdoor is a means of access to a computer that bypasses security mechanisms. Hackers often install back doors on computer programs so that computers can be regularly accessed.
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