Last week President Obama issued another executive order regarding cyber security. He followed up in his State of the Union speech by talking about foreign actors trying to sabotage our critical national infrastructure and private companies. The use of executive orders is a hot topic I don’t intend to debate in this column, but it is not disputed that foreign hackers are trying their best to probe our cyber defenses for weaknesses to exploit later, perhaps as the first attack in a war. Others are trying to weaken our economy and our infrastructure. Perhaps, it could be presumed that they are preparing the battlefield, the digital battlefield for an assault.
Today it has been revealed that a specific army unit in China, P.L.A. Unit 61398, is responsible for these attacks on government, utilities and commerce. Some attacks and exploits are targeted at specific firms. Others are broad based to find vulnerable systems so they can be used in furthering current and future exploits that can harm this country, our economy and your business. It is imperative that we take prudent steps to secure our IT systems and encourage our friends to do the same.
Here are a couple of related story links: