Cliff Stearns: “my colleagues, the control of information is critical to national security. This asset was compromised as reported in…”

“my colleagues, the control of information is critical to national security. This asset was compromised as reported in the London Times AP story in the Washington Post recently, last week. It was compromised from a cyber attack against the Department of Defense's unclassified e-mail system, which included the e-mail accounts of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. While the Pentagon does not have sufficient proof to formally make an accusation, China is the prime suspect. The responsibility is unclear, because China is home to many insecure computers and networks that hackers in other computers could use to simply disguise their locations and launch these attacks, making proper attribution difficult. The Chinese Government replied, ``It has always opposed any Internet wrecking crime, including hacking, and crack down on it according to their law.'' This is not true. Last June was not the first cyber attack that points back towards China. In 2005, a group with ties to China compromised secure networks from the Redstone Arsenal Military Base, to NASA, to the World Bank. In one case, the hackers stole flight planning software from the Army. The files they have obtained are not classified, but many are strategically important enough to require U.S. Government licenses for foreign use. Experts note China's military has openly discussed using cyber attacks as a means of defeating a more powerful conventional military such as ours.…”