The United States may have pioneered the idea of fighting wars in cyberspace, but it’s our adversaries who are using cyberattacks most effectively. To deter them, the country needs creative new ways to punish nations if they launch the devastating attacks that are within their grasp.Continue Reading Thinking the unthinkable about responding to cyberattacks
China
Webinar: The US-China Trade Relationship: Strategies for Coping with the New Normal
On August 28, Steptoe will host a webinar on US-China trade relations. From the announcement:
Over the past few months, US-China trade relations have radically changed. Under Section 301 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the United States has imposed additional tariffs on billions worth of China imports and is threatening to import tariffs
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How Lawyers Can Deter the Cybertheft of Commercial Secrets
Cyberspies can’t count on anonymity any more.
The United States (and the private security firm Mandiant) stripped a PLA espionage unit of its cover two years ago with a detailed description of the unit’s individual hackers; that report was followed by federal indictments of members of the unit that described them and their activities is…
China’s Use of Privacy Law Raises Questions for Privacy Advocates
China seems to have found a reliable legal tool for suppressing dissent. A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, has been arrested after a meeting in a private home to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the killings at Tiananmen Square. The charge? “Illegal access to the personal information of citizens,” a crime punishable by…
Tightening the Screws on Chinese Investment
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, reviews foreign investments for national security risks. It is now beyond doubt that Chinese investment is getting much closer scrutiny from CFIUS. A total of ten transactions failed to survive review in 2012, according to a just-released Treasury report. That may not sound…
Hackback Backers’ Comeback?
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has issued its annual report. It reminds us that, while press and privacy campaigners have been hyperventilating over US intelligence programs, there are, you know, actual authoritarian governments at work in the United States — breaking into the networks of activists whom they dislike, newspapers whose sources…
Using Attribution to Deter Cyberespionage
Foreign Policy has published my article on how attribution can be used to deter foreign governments’cyberespionage. Excerpts below:
The Obama-Xi summit in Sunnylands ended without any Chinese concessions on cyber-espionage. This came as no surprise; cyber spying has been an indispensable accelerant for China’s military and economic rise. And though Beijing may someday agree that…
Support for Retribution and Active Defense Increases
Chinese hacking continues to build anger in American business and government circles. As a result, private companies may be encouraged to do more than passively defend their networks as evidenced by the recent report of a commission headed by two Obama appointees, former US Ambassador to China (and minor GOP Presidential candidate) Jon Huntsman and…
Hacking Hollywood
That might sound like breaking news from 1983, but this time we’re not talking movie plots, we’re talking business. Specifically how Chinese cyberespionage could affect Hollywood’s bottom line. The Hollywood Reporter asked me to talk about that impact in a guest column, out this week. Here’s some of what I said:
Hollywood might be…
Found: The PLA’s University of Hacking
Bloomberg Businessweek has a remarkable story about the identification of another Chinese hacker. It’s a long, tangled, and fascinating tale of good sleuthing by several researchers, but the trail ends with Zhang Changhe, a digital entrepreneur and teacher — at a People’s Liberation Army school that is suspected of training PLA hackers.
In the denouement,…