{"id":16975,"date":"2014-11-19T12:30:57","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T01:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=16975"},"modified":"2014-11-20T08:22:59","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T21:22:59","slug":"cyber-wrap-51","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/cyber-wrap-51\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyber wrap"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>President Xi Jinping spoke of \u2018a bridge of mutual trust\u2019 and \u2018a vast ocean of goodwill\u2019 in his address to the Australian Parliament, but on the cyber front, recent headlines have painted China in a much more menacing light. Ahead of last weekend\u2019s G20 summit in Brisbane, CrowdStrike uncovered malicious cyber activity targeting Australian media outlets that it has connected to Chinese government-linked hacking groups. Deep Panda and Vixen Panda<\/a>, as the groups are being called, \u2018typically go after very strategic interests for the Chinese government\u2019, with CrowdStrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch highlighting Vixen Panda as particularly focused on Australia.<\/p>\n Reports from the US are also pointing fingers at China after a spate of attacks on US federal systems. Following targeted attacks on the White House<\/a> and the United States Postal Service<\/a>, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a> has revealed that four of its websites have been compromised. While the resilient meteorologists are said to have \u2018deflected\u2019 the attacks, taken in concert with a breach of the State Department<\/a>\u2019s unclassified email system, the trend is ringing alarm bells<\/a> on the Hill. State\u2019s tight-lipped approach<\/a> is concerning lawmakers, but, as Steve Ward reminds us, the best course of action isn\u2019t always \u2018to rush out and inform\u2019. With the cyber blur<\/a> causing trouble for America\u2019s cyber defenders, many were surprised that cyber didn\u2019t feature more prominently in meetings between President Obama and President Xi<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course, in this overhyped environment it\u2019s often worth taking a step back to unpack the underlying complexity of the US\u2013China cyber relationship. That\u2019s precisely James A. Lewis and Simon Hansen<\/a>\u2019s intent in ICPC\u2019s latest publication. Lewis breaks down the hysteria around Chinese economic cyber warfare, warning to ‘never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by avarice\u2019. And while a new Cold War in cyberspace makes for compelling headlines, oversimplifying and misrepresenting China\u2019s relationship with cyber has \u2018serious policy implications\u2019. Our man in Beijing, Simon Hansen, looks to rectify that very issue, deciphering China\u2019s elite discourse and political aspirations concerning cyberpower. For even more on the US\u2013China cyber relationship, check out this great interview<\/a> with Jim from the Diplomat.<\/p>\n While the US\u2013China cyber relationship is far more complex than may first appear, what\u2019s perfectly clear is the growing need for confidence building in cyberspace. Efforts in the OSCE<\/a> and in the ASEAN Regional Forum<\/a> have shown promise, but more comprehensive and inclusive measures are needed. The latest report<\/a> from the Cyber Statecraft Initiative over at the Atlantic Council and the Swedish National Defense College takes a crack at addressing that need, calling for a multistakeholder approach for stability and security.<\/p>\n One reason a multistakeholder approach to CBMs is needed is that \u2018cyberspace is predominantly dominated not by the actions of states but of nonstate actors\u2019. That fact is no more apparent than in the UK, where Scotland Yard<\/a> is waging \u2018war\u2019 on 200 cybercrime gangs in London alone. Like traditional criminal activity, cybercrime\u2019s primary driver is profit. As FBI Supervisory Special Agent Keith Mularski<\/a> puts it, \u2018cyber criminals view themselves as businessmen. They even buy ads on underground forums\u2019. Mularski went on to describe cyberspace as the venue for \u2018organized crime for the 21st Century\u2019, drawing comparisons with La Cosa Nostra and Joe Valachi.<\/p>\n Despite the increasing number of threats posed by nefarious cyber actors, Mularski did praise the \u2018great strides\u2019 made in information-sharing and law-enforcement cooperation. NIST is looking to further enhance that space, having released SP 800-150,<\/strong> its latest DRAFT Guide to Cyber Threat Information Sharing<\/a>. The document falls under NIST\u2019s Federal Information Security Management Act responsibilities and comments on the draft are welcome until November 28.<\/p>\n Kl\u00e9e Aiken<\/a> is an analyst in\u00a0ASPI\u2019s\u00a0International Cyber Policy Centre<\/a>. Image courtesy of Flickr user Eben Regls<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Xi Jinping spoke of \u2018a bridge of mutual trust\u2019 and \u2018a vast ocean of goodwill\u2019 in his address to the Australian Parliament, but on the cyber front, recent headlines have painted China in a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":16976,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,531],"tags":[52,556,391,169,713,728,31],"class_list":["post-16975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-cyber-security-2","tag-china","tag-confidence-building-measures","tag-cyber","tag-cyber-crime","tag-cyberattack","tag-hacking","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n