China speeding up military transformation, says Pentagon

March 26th, 2009 LONDON - A US Defence Department report has said that China is developing "disruptive" technologies for nuclear, space and cyber warfare, resulting in the shifting of military balance in Asia which would have implications beyond the region. The Pentagon report criticises Beijing again for showing no transparency in reporting on its military spending and security policy, but welcomed the rise of a peaceful, stable and prosperous China.

April 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - The United States will create a new military command to coordinate the defence of Pentagon computer networks and improve offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare, the Wall Street Journal has reported. The initiative will reshape the military's efforts to protect its networks from attacks by hackers, especially those from countries such as China and Russia, the influential daily said citing unnamed 'current and former officials familiar with the plans.' The new command will be unveiled within the next few weeks, it said citing Pentagon officials.

May 21st, 2009 BEIJING - An acclaimed Internet scientist has said that there is no way hackers could access top-secret data by penetrating the firewalls of military on government networks. Former National Computer Network Emergency response team's Director Professor Fang Binxing said there is no scientific basis to blame either China's military or the government for hacking other nations' networks because most of them are "out of reach".

June 13th, 2009 NEW YORK - President Barack Obama's plan to create a new Pentagon cyber command to protect the US from cyber attacks is raising significant privacy and diplomatic concerns. Unveiling the new cyberdefense strategy, Obama had said: "The cybersecurity effort will not - I repeat, will not - include monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic." But senior Pentagon and military officials say that Obama's assurances may be difficult to guarantee in practice, particularly in trying to monitor the thousands of daily attacks on security systems in the United States, that have set off a race to develop better cyberweapons, New York Times reports.

May 5th, 2009 Report: NKorea operating cyber warfare unitSEOUL, South Korea — North Korea runs a cyber warfare unit that tries to hack into U.S. and South Korean military networks to gather confidential information and disrupt service, a news report said Tuesday.

June 17th, 2009 BEIJING - China's lack of preparation against cyber terrorism has left the country "extremely vulnerable," to it, Chinese defence analysts have warned. "In the age of information, a nation's security would be at serious risk if its information systems were attacked, or the flow of information were interrupted," said Yu Xiaofeng, a specialist in non-traditional security at Zhejiang University.

June 3rd, 2009 BEIJING - China's government censors have begun to block access to Internet services Twitter, Hotmail and Microsoft's live.com ahead of the 20th anniversary of the military crackdown that ended the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement. The event falls on Thursday, reports the New York Times.

June 1st, 2009 APNEWSBREAK: US military tweetsKABUL — The U.S. military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site and feeds on Twitter as part of a new communications effort to reach readers who get their information on the Internet rather than in newspapers, officials said Monday.

June 1st, 2009 US military Tweets to counter TalibanKABUL — The U.S. military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site and feeds on Twitter as part of a new communications effort to reach readers who get their information on the Internet rather than in newspapers, officials said Monday.

August 17th, 2009 Dell developing smart phone for China MobileROUND ROCK, Texas — PC maker Dell Inc. is working on a smart phone for China Mobile Ltd., China's biggest cell phone carrier.

August 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is planning to ban Facebook, Twitter, and other social media at US Department of Defense sites. The prospective ban isn't due to fears that troops might divulge secure information over the sites, or to worries about bad PR.

March 29th, 2009 LONDON - Intelligence chiefs have cautioned the Gordon Brown Government about the possibility of China launching a cyber attack on Britain's telecom system. British Telecom's new communications network has been installed by Chinese telecom giant 'Huawei', which is allegedly funded by Beijing and has links to the People's Liberation Army.

April 10th, 2009 NEW DELHI - China has denied hacking into America's electrical grid, as media reports claimed that Chinese cyber-spies penetrated the US electrical grid. "The intrusion doesn't exist at all," Xinhua quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, as saying.

July 8th, 2009 Some recent international cyber attacksA look at some known international cyber attacks in recent years: —In April, a former U.S. government official said that spies had hacked into the U.S.

July 8th, 2009 White House among targets of sweeping cyber attackWASHINGTON — The powerful attack that overwhelmed computers at U.S. and South Korean government agencies for days was even broader than realized, also targeting the White House, the Pentagon and the New York Stock Exchange.