Report details U.S. weapons-systems compromised by Chinese hacking

Chinese hackers may have compromised the designs and functionality of many advanced U.S. weapon systems, according to a Washington Post account of a classified report from The Defense Science Board.

The report, provided to the Post, details more than two dozen weapons systems that may have had their most secret details revealed to the Chinese when details were stolen. The programs are said to be critical to the operation of U.S. missile defenses and to the capabilities of combat aircraft and ships.

Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism czar and now the managing partner of Good Harbor, a cyber-security consultancy, said this likely means that the Chinese will have an easier time building advanced weaponry — or understanding how to counter our military advances.

“The third possibility,” he said, “is that they may be able to implant code into our weapons systems, so they could activate that code in a time of crisis, and disable our weapons systems.”

There’s little question that the Chinese have copied our weapons system, but how far things have progressed down the other two avenues of attack remains unknown. Clarke calls the likelihood of the Chinese being able to implant code into our weapons “remote.”

“It’s so hard to find trap-doors in millions and millions of lines of code. There are some automated ways of doing that, but on certain applications, that’s very difficult,” he said.

This all represents a new front in international relations between global powers. Clarke said the Pentagon is slowly coming to grips with the fact that their expensive weapons could be disabled by a hacker’s actions months or years before.

And while this may be serious, Chinese espionage, Clarke said, expands far beyond the Pentagon.

“Every American company, no matter how small, is likely penetrated already by a Chinese automated program that is looking for credit card numbers or designs of private sector products,” he said.

America’s military hardware is only getting more complex, which presents increasing vulnerabilities. For example, he said, some U.S. planes can’t fly at all if their software is compromised. They’re so unstable they tumble out of the sky.

“We’re into a world where all weapons-systems are essentially software,” he said. “It’s certainly easier to steal your research and development than to pay for it yourself.”