President of PRC Xi Jinping has deployed a series of military strategies in critical zones covering land, air and sea globally in just three months into his second term. It also turned out that President Xi’s government has special interests in the internet.
Bowen News obtained exclusive interviews with various sources within the CCP’s military system. The existing evidence suggested that Chinese authorities have extended their cyber military forces into Shanghai and Beijing, with its largest expansion having occurred last month.
Sources from CCP military revealed exclusively to Bowen that the recruitment of IT elites for the cyber army was extremely selective – taking approximately six months. Recruited personnel were also approved by higher ups of the central headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing. Candidates were selected based on their background and association with military institutes, research institutes or the People’s Liberation Army. The families and contacts of all candidates had been thoroughly investigated and reviewed.
A senior technical executive of China’s military cyberpower, who wished to remain anonymous, has told Bowen Asia Pacific that China’s cyber military forces is “equipped with the latest hardware and software components. On top of monitoring internet traffic and social media activity within mainland China, China’s cyber militia also targets international users with its DDoS attacks, which is to be incorporated into its daily ‘training’ routine.” A DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack is a cyber attack that attempts to temporarily shut down an online service by flooding the target with requests, overloading it which prevents it from serving legitimate requests.
The source added, “At the moment, there is no clear delegation of tasks among cyber bases in Beijing and Shanghai. However the skillset of its personnel is enough to launch attacks of severe internet destruction upon targets. The cyber military has already launched numerous attacks on selected targets as practice.”
“The attacks can even target websites with high bandwidth, which collapse under China’s cyber attacks. The attacks can even disable websites completely.”
The technical executive commented on the recent DDoS attack on ProtonMail. Founded in 2014, ProtonMail is an end-to-end encrypted email service which protects the privacy of its users. Its servers are based in Switzerland.
He said, “While the attack on ProtonMail is unrelated to Chinese authorities, it is only a matter of time before China blocks ProtonMail completely with its firewall.”
Users of ProtonMail include those who exchange sensitive information and thus require a secure means of communication. With a shift to social media as a primary means of communication, few users in China have adopted ProtonMail as a communication platform. Its lack of publicity is perhaps why its access still remains open in China.
The majority of users in mainland China are still heavily reliant on state-owned apps such as WeChat and Weibo. Hence, user-secure services such as ProtonMail and Telegram still remain open to access within mainland China. However both are on the cyber army’s list of targets.
Bowen media has been unable to acquire any comments from CCP military officials or security services authorities.
A wide range of DDoS attacks occur on a regular basis. Bowen and Boxun news are often targets of attack as well, namely for reporting news concerning the CCP’s ill record of human rights. The DDoS attacks against GitHub have set a record of up to 1.35 Tbps. However, the CCP is potentially to push such a “cybercrime” to a new level.
As the “trade war” between China and the United States persists, the Chinese regime may adopt cyber attacks as its new weapon towards the U.S.
Translated from Bowen Press
