Richard Clarke: All Major U.S. Firms Hacked By China

bdking writes "Former White House cybersecurity advisor Richard Clarke says state-sanctioned Chinese hackers are stealing R&D from U.S. companies, threatening the long-term competitiveness of the nation. He said, 'The U.S. government is involved in espionage against other governments. There’s a big difference, however, between the kind of cyberespionage the United States government does and China. The U.S. government doesn’t hack its way into Airbus and give Airbus the secrets to Boeing [many believe that Chinese hackers gave Boeing secrets to Airbus]. We don’t hack our way into a Chinese computer company like Huawei and provide the secrets of Huawei technology to their American competitor Cisco. [He believes Microsoft, too, was a victim of a Chinese cyber con game.] We don’t do that. ... We hack our way into foreign governments and collect the information off their networks. The same kind of information a CIA agent in the old days would try to buy from a spy. ... Diplomatic, military stuff but not commercial competitor stuff.'"

Comments

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he just admit that his government hacks into other governments computer systems to steal diplomatic and military secrets? Did obama not say that cyber warfare like that is testimount to an act of war? If it's not and its ok for them to do it why are they trying to get that uk civilian hacker Gary Mckinnon for doing the same thing to them and saying its wrong and illegal when he did it to them but not when they do it themselves?

Re:Having worked for a few firms...

[Red Flayer]

That's the problem I have with bean counters - the inability to see the bigger integral picture.

I'm a professional bean counter. I think you're not only wrong about failing to see the bigger picture, I think you're way off on the value of IT.

IT doesn't drive product. It doesn't drive sales. It supports those functions, just as HR or Finance does. IT is not an asset... it is a cost center than maintains an asset.

Regardless of the role and scope of a team (such as IT), you set your targets for what you need and what you want, and then you try to get those things done with maximum bang for your buck. Sometimes that means reducing costs, sometimes that means increasing value -- it is management's call on how to maximize cost-benefit (which is what us bean counters help management do).

What some "big picture" guys (such as you make yourself out to be) miss is that the "big picture" is made up of little pieces, and if you want to affect the big picture, you need to affect the little pieces. The devil is in the details, and if you don't understand that, I don't think I'd want you in my org.