Reports from earlier this week revealed that US Military technologies and and weapon systems were infiltrated by Chinese hackers.  The news was confirmed by a US Official and confirmed the list of weapons and technologies that have been compromised.

The weapon systems hacked includes the stealth F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft program, the most expensive weapons program in history whose breach was previously reported; the Global Hawk long-range surveillance drone; aspects of the Patriot missile system; the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship and Black Hawk helicopters.  As for the technologies, the cyber criminals extracted information regarding nanotechnology, directed energy, space surveillance telescopes, tactical data links and drone video system.

The weapons and technologies compromised were included in the Department of Defense’s Defense Science Board (DSB) report, made for top Pentagon and defense industry officials, in which a public version was released last January.

The public report addressed concerns regarding how serious the cyber threat is, and that “the United States cannot be confident that our critical Information Technology (IT) systems will work under attack from a sophisticated and well-resourced opponent utilizing cyber capabilities in combination with all their military and intelligence capabilities.”

Pentagon spokesperson George Little addressed the growing concern, stating that cyber intrusion did not equal to the weakening of the US’ capabilities or technological edge.

The relationship between the US and China has been a bit sour ever since the Obama administration “escalated its warnings to the Chinese government to stop what Washington sees as rampant cyber­theft.”  To throw salt on the wound, White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon met with high-level Chinese military officials at the Chinese Defense Ministry, and allegedly called for a “new model for relations” by “ensuring we have a healthy, stable and reliable military-to-military relationship.”

Joining Kristin Feledy in this morning’s NewsDesk is SiliconANGLE John Casaretto with his Breaking Analysis regarding how this hacking incident could greatly affect the open internet.

“There’s a track record of these countries that try to create these open type of environments and in the end it ends up with more government control,” Casaretto stated.     “The US is one of the most capable cybersecurity infrastructures that can weaponize an attack, and the Chinese also have a lot of accusations [as to] what we do as a country.  I think they have a pent up interest in discovering more about what’s going on, and how they’re being attacked and if indeed that can be traced back to us…  It’s only going to get more complicated… I don’t think an open internet is really going to be something, on the surface, the end game.”

To know more about Casaretto’s Breaking Analysis on Chinese hackers, check out the NewsDesk video below: