Feinstein Statement on Cyber Agreement with China

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, sought to make a distinction between the OPM hacks and cybertheft of U.S. companies’ secrets to benefit another country’s industry.

The nation’s top intelligence official said Tuesday that he’s not optimistic that an agreement the USA recently struck with China will effectively deter cyber threats emanating from the communist nation.

USA officials reportedly said the data breach was conducted by a hostile party to identify spies and other American officials who could be blackmailed to provide information.

Eran Kahana, a cybersecurity attorney at the USA law firm Malson said, “Since not all data breachs are reported and it can be hard to tell where each breach came from, I think it will be years before we know if this [agreement] made a difference”.

America is pulling spies from China ’cause of a cyberattack in that compromised the private knowledge of 21.5 million authorities staff, a US official stated Tues. Hong Lei, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reiterated that position on Wednesday. The most significant agreement is as follows: ‘The United States and China agree that neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors’.

The hack is expected to have a major impact on US national security, in part because the stolen data includes information from USA government forms used for security clearances, known as SF86 questionnaires.

“As illustrated so dramatically with the OPM breaches, counterintelligence risks are inherent”, he said. He said that “every attack will have to be judged on a case, by case basis”.

“Unfortunately”, he said, “this is a gift that’s going to keep on giving for years”.

He said the response could involve a variety of tools, including economic sanctions and criminal indictments, as well as potential use of offensive cyber weapons.

US officials told the Washington Post that China could have compared those records with the list of embassy personnel, and anybody not on that list could be a Central Intelligence Agency official.

“I believe that you can find a enquiry regarding the point by which the (Chinese) federal actually orchestrates all or not”, he…