With worries growing over computer hacking, data theft and the risk of digital attacks destroying essential systems, western states and their allies are co-operating closer than ever on cyber security.
But as they do so, the gulf between them and China and Russia – blamed for many recent hacks and with a very different and much more authoritarian view over the future of the Internet – grows ever wider.
Last week, Chinese officials turned down invitations to a privately-run conference of military and civilian experts on cyber security in London, telling organizers Defence IQ they would not attend due to a “low tide” in relations with the U.S., particularly its military. A senior Russian official also pulled out at the last moment, citing a failure to obtain a U.K. visa in time – although other attendees suspected that might simply have been an excuse.
Western officials talk down such snubs. But they admit progress towards international agreement on “norms of behaviour” in cyberspace remains a distant dream.
“It is worrying,” says John Bassett, a former senior official at British signals intelligence agency GCHQ and now senior fellow at London’s Royal United Services Institute. “If anything, in the last year the differences have become more apparent and there seems to have been little success in tackling them. There is a risk it could end up damaging the wider relationship.”
Russia and China, it seems, have little appetite to tackle data theft whilst the West has no intention of acquiescing to Russian and Chinese demands for a more controlled Internet.
Jim Lewis, a former U.S. foreign service officer and now senior fellow at Washington D.C. think tank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, participates in regular semi-official meetings with China on cyber.
“There are several things coming together here,” he says.
“There is the political difference over the freedom and future of the Internet. Then that gets tied together with the theft of commercial property – which itself becomes part of the wider trade issues.”
Already, Western officials and academics involved in talks say discussions on cyber between East and West have become much more difficult and more complex than on any other issue.
“This is going to be a very gradual process,” says Christopher Painter, the U.S. State Department lead official on cyber policy. “There are obviously some very different visions of the future of the Internet... On intellectual theft, I’m not going to single out China or Russia but it’s obviously something we take very seriously.”
A November London conference organized by British Foreign Secretary William Hague was supposed to kickstart progress towards global consensus. But if anything, it looks to have simply exacerbated the differences. A follow-up conference in Budapest later this year could be similar, some fear.
“The London conference did seem to show a “non-flexible” attitude from both the West and East,” says Tony Dyhouse, a leading cyber security specialist for UK defence firm Quinetiq. “Dare we coin the term ‘Cyber Cold War?’ ”
In public, U.S. and other Western officials almost always decline to detail where they believe the plethora of recent cyber attacks have come from.
In the last year, they have included attempts to break into computer systems at the U.S. State Department and British Foreign Office and other highly publicized attacks on Lockheed Martin, Google, the NASDAQ and the International Monetary Fund amongst others.
But privately and occasionally on the record, they frequently point the finger at Russia and China. Both angrily deny any involvement, saying they too are victims of hacking.
But many Western security specialists say the evidence against both nations – particularly China – has become increasingly compelling.
“China is currently engaged in a maximal industrial espionage effort that it justifies internally in terms of a catch up strategy (with the West),” says Thomas Barnett, chief analyst at political risk consultancy Wikistrat and a former strategist for the U.S. Navy. “The key question here is: can China assume the mantle of intellectual property rights respect fast enough to avoid triggering economic warfare of the West... If it can’t, then this is likely to get ugly.”
PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant Tim Hind, a former intelligence chief at British bank Barclays, has few doubts.
Source: The Globe and Mail
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