Dark Clouds - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 142

responsible for critical infrastructure projects, including electrical power
grids, gas lines, and waterworks (Sanger, Barboza, and Perlroth 2013). A
survey of U.S. companies with businesses in China concluded that about
a fourth claimed to have been hacked (Reuters 2013b). Details remained
murky, and it was reasonable to wonder about the connection between
the proliferation of hacking reports and the U.S. government's drive to
pass controversial cyber-security legislation that itself raised privacy ques-
tions because it would increase information-sharing between intelligence
agencies and private companies (Finkle 2013). Furthermore, as two hack-
ing experts note, “It's good business today to blame China. I know from
experience that many corporations, government and DOD organizations
are more eager to buy cyber threat data that claims to focus on the PRC
than any other nation state” (Raimondo 2013).
The United States was not just on the receiving end of cyber-attacks.
Particularly notable was one it launched with Israel to send the malicious
Stuxnet malware to disrupt Iran's nuclear program. China also claimed
that the United States was responsible for massive cyber-attacks on its
computers and data centers, especially those containing sensitive military
data. According to a spokesman for the defense ministry, China's two
main military websites are under constant attack from the United States:
“Last year, the Chinese Defence Ministry website and Chinamil.com were
attacked 144,000 times a month on average. Attacks originating in the
U.S. accounted for 62.9 percent” (Hille and Thomas 2013). Moreover,
China's Huawei, a world leader in the provision of telecommunications
equipment, which itself has been charged with stealing sensitive data in
the United States, Australia, and Canada, maintains that its computers
are attacked about 10,000 times a week (ibid.). For the People's Daily , “In
fact, it is America which is a real hackers' empire worthy of this name”
(ibid.). Indeed, given the connection revealed by Edward Snowden
between Verizon and the National Security Agency (NSA), even Western
experts wonder whether the special attention to Huawei is justiied since
we now know that at least one of America's telecommunications giants
has been directly involved in massive cyber-surveillance (Pilling 2013).
Furthermore, Snowden's contention that hacking attacks on Hong Kong
and China have emanated from the United States for years did not help
the American claim that China is the primary source of cyber-mischief
(Lam 2013).