PRISM scandal turns spotlight on US firms in China
- By Chen Boyuan
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 27, 2013
Possibility of security breach
According to official data, around 50,000 overseas IP addresses attacked China in the form of Trojans and zombie networks in 2011 alone. Among the 8.9 million victim host computers, more than 99 percent were hacked by U.S. systems according to the National Computer Network Emergency Response technical Team Coordination Center of China (CNCERT).
As Snowden's revelations reveal, the U.S. has launched some 61,000 cyber attacks, including those on key electronic information hubs on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong in recent years, said Shen Dingli, a renowned scholar on international affairs at Fudan University in Shanghai. He noted that if any of those attacks were to breach any of China's network defenses, the country's national secrets, as well as private citizens' personal information, would be completely exposed.
Li Jun, president of Sugon Information Technology Company was cautious about pointing the finger at the U.S. but said that it was hard to ignore the possibility that the U.S. was involved. "We cannot conclude that a certain country or equipment manufacturer actually did this," he said. "But from a sheer technological point of view, it is possible and would not a surprising conclusion to reach [that the U.S. is involved.]"
The cloud computing phenomenon allowed PRISM to access information in a more comprehensive manner than ever before. In the past risk evaluations were conducted separately on small-scale systems or equipment. But cloud computing magnifies risks by placing them together. "Scattered information in a cloud could be pieced together to form a crucial message," said Ning Jiajun, chief engineer at China's State Information Center (SIC).
For example, data on the spending habits of one private citizen is of little value, but when data related to the spending habits of several hundred million people is placed together and properly analyzed, it will reveal key information about a country's economic development.
Opportunity and solution
Chinese technology products are developing rapidly and can, in most cases, meet the needs of home uses. Some products, such as Huawei's switches and Sugon's supercomputers, enjoy international acclaim.
Li stated that, despite the fact that foreign competitors still enjoyed an advantage, the Chinese information industry is among the world's best.
Ning insisted that although technological advancement is important, a risk-free information environment also requires proper management. He said: "For equipment that has to be imported, all those involved in the process must strictly follow protocols. In sensitive departments, computers' remote ports must be closed and all equipment must pass security specialists' stress tests."
Ning also proposed the establishment of a state-level department with a direct chain of command to administer information security, citing the example of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which reports directly to the president. He argued that the establishment of such a department could dramatically reduce the possibility of inefficiency and confusion in the supervisory chain.
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