ABSTRACT
In August 2011, McAfee issued a report, Revealed: Operation Shady RAT,2 which investigated targeted intrusions into 72 global companies, governments, and non-profit organizations during the last 5 years. Of the intruded targets, 49 were in the United States. While no specific individual, group, or country was ever mentioned, commentators across the spectrum of media outlets indicated that China was the most likely suspect. As such, it is necessary to recall (from various public reports in the press) that, over the past half-dozen years right into early 2012, China has been identified publicly as being behind almost all of the computer intrusions. Imagine your system, your neighbor’s system, your company’s system, various government agencies, organizations, and institutions of high learning being hacked. And the hacking is going on almost continuously. When you have a nation such as China with millions of young people who are very creative in their endeavors, all of whom searching out methods and means to intrude on your system, then any reasonable person could reasonably conclude that such a series of attacks would be directed or at least monitored by the government of any given nation. China has the people, the technology, the creative minds, and the will and the desire to know what is going on everywhere in the world. At the same time, such ventures also provide the means to an end: an opportunity to steal a massive amount of scientific, technical, mechanical, engineering, chemical, agricultural, energy, military, and political data for their own use.
