Chinese hackers have hit nearly every Washington institution, according to unnamed intelligence officials.
“The dark secret is there is no such thing as a secure unclassified network,” one said in a Newser report. “Law firms, think tanks, newspapers. If there’s something of interest, you should assume you’ve been penetrated.”
One FBI official had this to add, according to Newser: “I’ve yet to come across a network that hasn’t been breached.”
A recent report from a Virginia firm found that a special unit of China’s military holed in a small, nondescript office is to blame for cybersecurity breaches at 141 different targets around the world. Hackers are particularly targeting Washington’s power base, Newser said. China continues to deny its involvement in cybersecurity warfare.
America’s big hope, the unnamed intelligence experts said in the Newser report, is that China gets so much information that its hackers just can’t process it.
“You can waste an enormous amount of time and effort puzzling over something that is totally meaningless,” said one expert on China in the Newser report.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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