The US Standing as the Top Military Power is Threatened

According to The Wall Street Journal, “An internal Navy review concluded that the Navy and its industry partners are under cyber siege by Chinese hackers and others who have stolen national security secrets in recent years. The tone of the review is urgent and at times dire, offering a rare unfiltered look at the military’s cybersecurity liabilities.

The 57-page document is especially scathing in its assessment of how the Navy has addressed cybersecurity challenges facing its contractors and subcontractors, faulting naval officials for failing to anticipate that adversaries would attack the defense industrial base and not adequately informing those partners of the cyber threat. It also acknowledges a lack of the full extent of the damage.

For years, global competitors and adversaries have targeted these critical contractor systems with impunity, the audit says. These enterprises, regardless of their relationship with the department, are under cyber siege."

The article says, "The Navy declined to comment on the review which hasn’t been publicly released. The review presented the threat posed by China in particularly stark terms, arguing that its cyber espionage against the US military, its suppliers and the private sector in general have shifted power dynamics between the world’s two biggest economies.

Chinese copy of F-35 fighter.

China has derived an incalculable near and long-term military advantage from it [the hacking] thereby altering the calculus of global power, the report said. The findings are of acute interest and concern within the Navy.

We are under siege, said a senior Navy official. People think its much like a deadly virus - if we don’t do anything, we could die."

John Hultquist, director of the US based firm FireEye, added, “That if you are a Navy leader, you have to see that these are the tools they could use to fight us decades down the road.”

One major breach of a Navy contractor, reported in June and attributed to Chines hackers, involved the theft of secret plans to build a supersonic antiship missile planned for use by American submarines, according to officials.

"The report repeatedly singles out China and Russia in the theft of military secrets portraying their actions as calibrated to achieve strategic objectives while remaining below the threshold of armed conflict, a metered approach that the US has struggled to defend against."

Iran, North Korea and other adversaries are culprits as are our allies. We are in the game, as well. You will recall Stuxnet, a CIA-Mossad joint venture which made Iran’s centrifuges spin themselves into scrap and led to the nuclear accord from which the US has just withdrawn.

The review found flaws with the Navy’s longstanding approach to its own supply chain security which relies on contractors self- reporting vulnerabilities and breaches.

It is somewhat like the FAA asking Boeing to report flaws in its own 737 MAX aircraft.

"Navy officials declined to give even an estimate of incidents over the last 18 months other than to say they are numerous, according to The WSJ.

When I attended the US Army War College last year, I asked how we know we are at war. The answer was, it depends. I asked how would we respond? They said commensurately or maybe not at all. One breach they disclosed was through an unprotected sensor to maintain water temperature in a fish tank. 

In another meeting last year, I asked the Air Force General in charge of the US Air Force Cyber Command (he has 54,000 employees) if we are at war, a question he did not deny. Yesterday, I asked a friend who was a very senior civilian with the US Army Electronics Command, he said he constantly had to restore and build firewalls around themselves and their contractors and eliminate viruses. A few years ago, the Chief of Naval Operations told me that cyber will be one of our biggest threats.

The US holds Beijing responsible for an onslaught of intrusions into US corporate and government networks. Chinese hackers stand accused of stealing hundreds of billions of dollars annually in intellectual property from US businesses.

The Russians are at it 24/7.

As reported in The New York Times this week, Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security chief said that cyberthreats were a national security crisis that are her top priority. The New York Times also reported that, “American intelligence spending could rise to $86 billion, a 6% increase. The budget covers expenses as diverse as spy satellites, cyberweapons and the CIA’s network of spies and informants.”

Although details of the budget are secret, broadly the spending shifts reflect the increased cost of focusing less on terrorism and more on espionage and cyberthreats from other nations. One of our problems is that while our own offensive cyber capabilities are massive we don’t necessarily want to use them and reveal our capabilities. Also, we have more for others to steal.

As the Pennsylvania Dutch say, “We get too soon old and too late smart.”

What do you think?

Ira Friedman

*Cartoon - Wall Street Journal