WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officials believe the Chinese military is working to launch wide-scale cyber-attacks on American and Taiwanese computer networks, including Internet-linked military systems considered vulnerable to sabotage, according to a classified CIA report.
Moreover, U.S. authorities are bracing for a possible wave of hacking attacks by Chinese students against the United States in coming weeks, according to the analysis. The confidential alert, which was reviewed by The Times, was sent to intelligence officials a week ago.
Although U.S. officials have voiced concerns about individual hackers in China who have defaced federal and private Web sites, the United States has resisted publicly linking the Chinese government to those attacks or to broader cyber-style warfare.
The new CIA report, however, makes clear that U.S. intelligence analysts have become increasingly concerned that authorities in Beijing are actively planning to damage and disrupt U.S. computer systems through the use of Internet hacking and computer viruses.
Although the assessment concludes that China has not yet acquired the technical sophistication to do broad damage to U.S. and Taiwanese systems, it maintains that this is the "intended goal" of the People's Liberation Army in China. "The mission of Chinese special forces includes physical sabotage" of vulnerable systems, the report says--which some analysts said is driven by China's hostility toward Taiwan.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington insisted Wednesday, however, that Beijing is only conducting computer research that is strictly defensive in nature.
"It is not the Chinese government's policy to disrupt the computer system of any other country," said Larry Wu, an official in the embassy's science and technology section.
"We do research on the security of computers, of course--self-defense to understand how a hacker can get into our computer systems so we can defend it," he said. "But China has never assumed an offensive stance with regards to computer technology."
But several specialists in Chinese security and military affairs said the CIA's conclusions jibe with their own observations about China's research into offensive-minded cyber-tools.
"We should be very worried about this issue," said James Mulvenon, a China analyst at the Rand Corp. think tank who has done extensive studies into Chinese computer capabilities.
