The Obama administration is failing in its duty to protect the country from the threat of a Chinese cyber attack, former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke warned in a
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed.
“Congress hasn't passed a single piece of significant cyber security legislation,” wrote Clarke, who served under both President Bushes and President Clinton.
Government officials know that the Chinese government is “systematically attacking the computer networks of the U.S. government and American corporations,” and therefore it has a duty to do something about it, Clarke wrote.
“Three years ago, the head of the British Security Service wrote to hundreds of corporate chief executive officers in the U.K. to advise them that their companies had in all probability been hacked by the government of China,” he wrote.
“Neither the FBI nor the Department of Homeland Security has issued such a notice to U.S. executives, but most corporate leaders already know it.”
A more traditional threat would be dealt with immediately, he wrote. “What would we do if we discovered that Chinese explosives had been laid throughout our national electrical system? The public would demand a government response.”
“If, however, the explosive is a digital bomb that could do even more damage, our response is apparently muted – especially from our government.”
Government officials admit in private that the government has no strategy to prevent such an attack, Clarke contends.
“Rather than defending American companies, the Pentagon seems focused on "active defense," by which it means offense. That cyber offense might be employed if China launched a massive cyber war on the United States.
“But in the daily guerrilla cyber war with China, our government is engaged in defending only its own networks. It is failing in its responsibility to protect the rest of America from Chinese cyber attack.”
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