Washington's Secret Weapon Against Chinese Hackers

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139139/zachary-k-goldman/washingtons-secret-weapon-against-chinese-hackers

By Zachary K. Goldman
Foreign Affairs
April 8, 2013

“The tide of war is receding,” U.S. President Barack Obama proclaimed in 
October 2011, announcing the impending conclusion of the war in Iraq. In 
the year and a half since, however, the tide of a new type of conflict 
has been rising -- one that takes place not on land, in the air, or at 
sea but in cyberspace. Indeed, in the past several months, the Obama 
administration has called a great deal of attention to the threat posed 
by cyberattacks and cybertheft, the most ominous source of which appears 
to be China. Early last month, the national security adviser, Tom 
Donilon, said that the cybertheft of confidential information and 
technology from American businesses has been “emanating from China on an 
unprecedented scale,” and General Keith Alexander, the director of the 
National Security Agency, has previously called such theft “the greatest 
transfer of wealth in history.”

If recent announcements are any indication, the Obama administration has 
heightened its focus on cybersecurity threats. In February, the White 
House published an executive order directed at improving the 
cybersecurity of the country’s critical infrastructure. That same month, 
it also unveiled a new strategy for preventing the theft of U.S. trade 
secrets. One potentially crucial tool, however, has been largely absent 
from the discussion of how the United States should address 
cyberthreats: targeted financial sanctions. Given the success of 
targeted financial sanctions in other contexts -- namely, 
counterterrorism and efforts to stem nuclear proliferation -- the Obama 
administration should establish a process for imposing them on 
individuals and entities that engage in pernicious cyberactivity.

For a number of reasons, targeted sanctions are particularly well suited 
to address the threats posed by cyberattacks and cybertheft, and they 
could form an important part of a larger strategy to mitigate the 
problem. First, for attacks undertaken by states or their proxies, 
sanctions could serve as a deterrent against future illicit behavior. 
This is because states, concerned for their reputations, have an 
interest in preventing their unlawful activity from being exposed 
publicly. Late last year, for example, both Beijing and the Chinese 
company Huawei Technologies strongly objected to a report published by 
the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that accused 
Huawei and another Chinese company of posing a significant cyberthreat 
to U.S. national security interests. Huawei went so far as to label the 
report "an exercise in China-bashing.”

Targeted financial sanctions are also well suited to address illicit 
cyberactivities perpetrated by nonstate actors. For such actors, public 
sanctions would not only serve as a deterrent; they would limit their 
access to the U.S. financial system. The Obama administration has 
imposed targeted financial sanctions against similar nonstate criminal 
groups in the past -- such as the Yakuza in Japan, Los Zetas in Mexico, 
and the Camorra in Italy -- as part of its strategy to combat 
transnational organized crime. Targeted financial sanctions have also 
played a major role in weakening al Qaeda over the last several years.

[...]

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