PLA unveils nation's first cyber center
- Source: Global Times
- [02:30 July 22 2010]
- Comments
By Peng Pu
The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) unveiled its first cyber base headquarters on Monday that is dedicated to handling all types of cyber threats and related issues, PLA Daily reported.
The center marks the debut of a new force in China to tackle potential cyber threats and to safeguard national security, the report said.
The establishment of the cyber base was a strategic move ordered by President Hu Jintao to handle issues as China enters the information age. It marks the emergence of China's military power in information support and security, according to the report.
Some foreign media said the base marks the launch of the PLA's cyber war headquarters and its formation of a cyber army.
US security expert Richard A. Clarke earlier defined information war, or cyber warfare, as "actions by a nation to penetrate another nation's computers or networks for the purpose of causing damage or disruption."
However, an officer in the General Staff Headquarters, the army's most powerful office, told the Global Times Wednesday on condition of anonymity that the foreign media speculation was not true.
"The setup of the base just means that our army is strengthening its capacity and is developing potential military officers to tackle information-based warfare," he said.
He added that the base would be used to gather online information and "build up walls" to safeguard confidential military information.
"It is a 'defensive' base for information security, not an offensive headquarters for cyber war," he said.
He also mentioned that the question about whether to build a cyber war headquarters similar to that of the US or not triggered heated debate among some senior military officials.
The current level of information technology in the Chinese army lags behind that of the US. Meanwhile there are 13 DNS servers around the globe, of which the root server and nine others are all located in the US, he explained.
Li Fei, a network security expert at the National Defense University, told the Global Times Wednesday that the major purpose for establishing the base was to enhance the army's strength in network defense, but he refused to give details about the base.
Cyber security attracted worldwide concern recently. Some foreign media blamed Chinese hackers for a string of attacks on some websites that belong to government agencies and military institutions in other countries.
India Today reported in January that Chinese hackers attacked the Indian Prime Minister's office around December 2009, and said that China has trained a cyber army of 300,000 people.
The National Computer Network Emergency Response Team (CNCERT) denied the accusation.
"Most foreign countries that developed advanced informational system and cyber technology are equipped with professional hacker teams. They never mention their cyber force but keep rumor mongering and overstating the cyber threat from Chinese hackers, which conversely reflect they're covering up their political purpose of building up a cyber army," Zhou Yonglin, an official with CNCERT, told the Xinhua News Agency in January.
Zhou noted that China faces the most severe cyber threats.
