What to do about cyber attacks from state actors and their surrogates? For the State Department and DHS it would seem that the answer is now the courts and international negotiation. Hints of this came recently with the indictment of 5 Chinese military personnel for hacking. An utterly futile gesture as the Chinese are not about to extradite the 5 to stand trial, it bespeaks reliance on legal remedies that are, at best, only a matter of public shaming. Now, however, there is new evidence regarding the U.S. intent to negotiate on cyber with state actors like China, Russia, and Iran.
Along with recent Chinese hacking into the Office of Personnel Management comes a reports that Chinese hackers, almost certainly at the behest of their government, have begun targeting Middle East experts at major U.S. think tanks. This, in response to events in Iraq and, seemingly, an urgent Chinese need to know where U.S. policy regarding them might be going. Operation “Deep Panda,” as it is named by researchers, was announced by Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer of cyber security company CrowdStrike. Alperovitch suggested that perhaps the Chinese were concerned about their oil infrastructure in Iraq. Whether the U.S. will intervene and protect Chinese interests may be the question of the hour for Beijing.
