In recent days, the Pentagon admitted that Chinese hackers were able to make off with over 600 gigabytes worth of data because a Stateside contractor had been storing it on an unsecured server. The hackers had targeted a contractor working with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center earlier this year. The data was highly sensitive, but it remains unclear if it was officially classified. Military officials have acknowledged, however, that the aggregated data could be considered as classified.
Obviously, this is bad news for the American military. However, it’s not exactly a surprise. The United States pours more money into its military than Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom combined. American military technology is all but unrivaled. If you can’t beat it, why not steal it?
And herein lies perhaps the biggest problem with stolen military secrets. If China is able to steal enough data and information, they may be able to build their own versions of American weapons technologies, or else backward engineer similar weapons. It’s unclear if this is the case with the recently hacked Navy data. However, the military has acknowledged that data regarding the supersonic “Sea Dragon” missiles may have been compromised.
The United States has spent at least $300 million on the Sea Dragon hypersonic anti-ship weapons platform. Many of America’s anti-ship weapons have stagnated since the Cold War. The Sea Dragon is supposed to help change that. So far, the military has largely avoided discussing any details of the program due to its classified nature. However, with China rapidly building up its Navy, the United States is under pressure to overhaul its aging weapons.
And yet, Chinese military leaders and researchers may be poring over data right now that might reduce the effectiveness and exclusivity of the Sea Dragon missiles. Even if the Chinese didn’t secure enough information to fully engineer their own Sea Dragon-equivalent weapons, they may have uncovered enough data to find weaknesses and exploitations.
Military officials have also acknowledged that foreign hackers often target defense contractors and support organizations. It seems that many of these outside parties are lax with their security protocols, making them ripe targets for hacking. There are over 50,000 Department of Defense contractors working with the military in any given year. However, not all of them are involved in R&D or handling classified information.
Regardless, there are many potential targets, and while the DoD can go to great lengths to ensure the security of its own assets, wrangling-in countless security contractors represents a much more daunting challenge. The military can’t exactly send security teams or set up the IT infrastructure for every contractor. Of course, the DoD can issue guidelines, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll be followed or even effective.
This presents a major problem for the military: they need contractors but at the same time can’t fully rely on those contractors to keep things secret. In 2017, hackers were able to steal data from an Australian contractor. Before that, Chinese national Su Bin had been arrested for stealing data regarding the F-35 and F-22A from Boeing and other defense contractors. America can’t drop its contractors, but if something doesn’t change, all our hard-earned military tech might just end up in the hands of rivals anyway.
