China: Cybersecurity and Mosaic Intelligence

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Any computer connected to the Internet is potentially subject to this same sort of assault, but the danger is particularly high in China itself or in places like Afghanistan, where half the Internet traffic is routed through China. Foreign government, military and contractor computers are prime targets.

It is already fairly common corporate practice among IT-savvy firms to dispatch employees to such areas only with “disposable” computers stripped to the greatest extent possible of sensitive or proprietary information. Indeed, some companies will actually physically shred laptops that have been connected to the Internet through China in special machines because they are considered permanently compromised when it comes to sensitive or classified information. Malicious software (malware) has been discovered in other parts of the computer outside the hard drive. There are even studies suggesting that a computer’s firmware (the code that is embedded in a computer’s hardware) could be infected; some cybersecurity professionals already consider this a real concern.

Indeed, computer hardware, including hard drives, now are even coming out of the factory infected with malware (USB “thumb” drives reportedly have notoriously high infection rates). This is hardly limited to China — again, like much in cyberspace, culprits usually are extremely difficult to pinpoint — but Beijing is a particular concern. ....

Beijing relies heavily on a model known as mosaic intelligence, which consists of maximizing the quantity of raw material collected — not targeting anything specific, simply seeing what bits of data can be found — seeing what comes back, and then piecing the information together into a “mosaic” in China. While this might not seem like the most efficient means of collection, China enjoys a demographic position where manpower is not a primary concern. ....