14 DAY TRIAL // China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has launched a cyber defense program which involves setting up an unit of thirty officers highly skilled in cyber security.
A Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesperson told reporters last week that the program was established in the Guangzhou military region and comes in response to the country's growing needs of defending itself against cyber attacks.
"Cyber attacks have become an international problem affecting both civilian and military areas. China is relative weak in cyber security and has often been targeted. This temporary program is aimed at improving our defenses against such attacks," the official said, according to the Global Times.
This position is somewhat ironic, considering that western governments are constantly blaming China for cyber attacks against their own networks and often not without proof.
There has been a widely accepted belief in the United States and Europe for the past several years that the Chinese military already has hackers on its payroll.
In March 2009, researchers associated with the Information Warfare Monitor published a research paper describing a large Chinese cyber espionage operation dubbed GhostNet which targeted computers belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government departments in 103 countries.
According to diplomatic cables leaked from the US embassy in Beijing, a local informant claimed Operation Aurora, a series of cyber attacks against Google and thirty other Fortune 500 companies, was ordered by the Chinese Communist Party's political bureau.
The existence of this new unit, which is dubbed the "cyber blue team," has been known since April, when PLA Daily, the Chinese army's official newspaper said that millions of dollars were poured into the program.
The team is made up of thirty soldiers selected from the country's top cyber security talent and they have already executed cyber-warfare drills that involved protecting the army's networks against various threats.
Even though Chinese officials claim this cyber defense unit was not set up to initiate attacks against others, that's somewhat unlikely. Estonia, Germany, India and the United Kingdom have all announced plans to set up cyber warfare divisions during the past year and didn't hold back from admitting they'll go on the offense if needed.