'The Shadow War': How a Chinese spy stole some of the Pentagon's most sensitive secrets

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/14/politics/shadow-war-chinese-spy/index.html

By Jim Sciutto
CNN Anchor and Chief National Security Correspondent
CNN.com
May 14, 2019

New York (CNN) - Adapted from "The Shadow War: Inside Russia and China's Secret 
Operations to Defeat America" by Jim Sciutto. Copyright © 2019. Available from 
Harper Collins. [1]

To his American friends and contacts, Stephen Su was an affable businessman and 
gregarious guy.

"People liked him," Bob Anderson, the FBI's former head of counterintelligence, 
told me. "They didn't think he was an asshole and I know that sounds stupid, 
but people are people and that's how it started."

Stephen Su, who also went by his Chinese name Su Bin, lived in his native China 
but traveled frequently to the United States and Canada, to build a business in 
the aviation and aerospace sectors. His company, Lode-Tech, was a small player 
in a field of giants. However, from 2009 to 2014, Su steadily and deliberately 
built a network of close business contacts inside far bigger US and Canadian 
defense contractors who held some of most sensitive US military contracts.

"So, he cultivates you over time," Anderson recalled.

The information Su was most interested in related to three of the most advanced 
US military aircraft ever built, the Lockheed Martin F-35 and F-22 stealth 
fighters and the Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft. Though they were 
the products of two of the Pentagon's biggest military contractors, each drew 
on thousands of components sourced from dozens of smaller suppliers. That 
supply chain provided numerous ins for Su—as well as a convenient explanation 
for any partners who grew concerned about the kind of information he was 
looking for.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-War-Russias-Operations-America/dp/0062853643/infosecnews-20

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