Two experts in the field of information technology discuss with “Sky News Arabia” the motives for possible hacking attacks by Beijing and Moscow against Washington, and the need for US authorities to launch attacks from them, and who will have the upper hand in this “war”?
The latest mutual accusations rang out in recent hours, in a statement from Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm affiliated with US-based Google, which said China-linked attackers were targeting government agencies and schools in 16 countries, in the region. largest electronic espionage operation by a China-linked group since the hack that targeted the Microsoft Exchange company” in 2021.
Evidence of the attackers’ connection to China was unclear, but the company said the attacks targeted high-priority files for Beijing, including those linked to Taiwan.
In May, US Navy Secretary Carlos del Toro accused a piracy group he linked to China called “Volt Typhoon” of targeting his country’s navy ships operating in the Pacific region.
As usual, Beijing dismissed the accusation, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Friday that was “far from the truth.” He accused Washington of carrying out the hack, but reports of US attacks rarely come forward.
Why not record the American attacks?
Information technology expert Maryam Hafnawi rules out the need for Washington to launch conventional cyberattacks and attributes this to:
Washington currently has the upper hand in information security and may not need cyberattacks against other countries. The United States is the one that exports information networks and the Internet to China and Russia. Therefore, cyberattacks are against him and his allies to tamper with the security of the global network, which is centered on US lands, in order to penetrate it. The term cyberattacks is American, and Washington uses it against countries that try to penetrate their computer security or tamper with their digital systems.
From a treasure trove of information to a field of espionage
To clarify, the researcher presents an overview of how the issue evolved from the internet as a source of information, to an arena for hacking and espionage wars:
The world of the Internet and the information networks in which we live began in the United States, and it is to this country that we owe the credit for its development, and it is to Great Britain that we attribute the deserves to have been the first to undertake the digital transformation. Then the United States invented the field of information security. Due to its control over the extension of internet cables around the world. This superiority has been exploited by Washington in terms of intelligence. Thus, the world became an open book for her. America has surrounded its companies with very complex security systems to protect them from hacking, which requires taking several measures to prove the identity of the user of its networks. As for China and Russia, they have come up against the exploitation by the United States of this superiority in terms of espionage, and have turned into competitors in the field of connecting networks and cables to stop this superiority. Moscow and Beijing prohibit their citizens from using American search sites, such as Google; To make sure he plays a spying role on the world, they have worked to establish their own research sites and networks that America doesn’t see.
Especially in information prevails in war
In the words of an information technology expert, Abd al-Rahman Dawood, “He who has the tools to control information security, and strengthens his front in cyberattacks, is the one who achieves supremacy in any military, political or economic conflict, and even control of the world.”
He gives, for example, that a cyberattack “can manipulate exchange rates and stop maritime and air traffic”.
In addition to Moscow applying some of this in its war against Ukraine, Beijing is preparing to control Taiwan with a cyberattack that precedes military action if it decides to invade Taiwan, according to Dawood’s prediction.
America, along with Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, have established an alliance called the “Five Eyes” to counter Chinese and Russian attacks.
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