On today’s NewsDesk segment we discussed this situation with Chinese cyber-espionage and their sustained campaign again U.S. defense contractors, government agencies, and private industry.  It’s a perilous state of affairs to say the least.  I also made the point that we are in a new arms race only that this time around we are not talking about nuclear weapons or missiles, today’s arms race is based in cybersecurity, cyberweaponry, and cyberintelligence.  This upcoming week President Obama is scheduled to summit in Palm Springs with Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the President of the People’s Republic of China, and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission.   The list of topics will be long but as many expect that the topic of cyber-espionage will be front and center.

As cyber issues continue to attract attention, so will the nature of what can come from these discussions.  Some have wondered if an agreement of some sort can be reached between the two giants.  To be certain, this has been a growing issue for a number of years now and incidents have been revealed publicly in the last couple of months.  A number have exposed the worst of fears, the most sensitive of documents and targets.  Lately the issue has been pushed to the forefront because of these obvious issues and the fact that business and corporations are now involved, under threat of cyber attack.  Surely they feel something could be done about this.

Back to the nuclear analogy, a bunch of interesting elements enter into the fray.  It is well estimated that a single cyber attack could significantly cripple this country’s infrastructure, financial systems, and more.  This is on order with what chaos and devastating effects can occur under a nuclear scenario, or terrorism -it’s that serious.  Will it happen?  It certainly could, but will it – that’s the question.  I for one don’t believe this is the end goal for China.  They have trillions of dollars invested and at stake in American prosperity.  There are still many questions that remain and among them are what will the president stake out as the rules o engagement in cyber-affairs?  President Obama has already stated that the U.S. has the right to counter-attack.  What exactly does that mean?  What is the threshold?  Where is the burden of proof and what is the timetable?  It aims to be an interesting discussion as you can already tell.  Here’s another one that should raise some real issues – if an attack is launched against a private corporation, does that corporation now have the right to strike back?

The Chinese aren’t alone in their cyber-militarism.  Though the U.S. has never confirmed it, it wasn’t that long ago that the news of Stuxnet and later the “Olympic Games” that led up to its eventual payload against Iranian nuclear development.  The U.S. was tied to that by almost anyone that could read between the lines.  We are clearly capable and there apparently is no problem in letting that be known.  Currently, the U.S. CyberCommand (USCYBERCOM) is under the direction of General Keith Alexander. This change in operational structure under a single authority has taken place since its inception in 2009 and in the following last few years.

“USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries.”

General Alexander is scheduled to keynote this July’s Black Hat 2013 conference.  There will likely be considerable discussions on not only cyber-defense, but cyber-offense and further discussion on the rules of cyber-engagement.  He is expected to discuss the collaborations between the government and private sectors, among other things.