Commander of U.S. Forces in Pacific Says Chinese Hackers Will Continue Stealing Our Secrets Because They Are So Good at It

April 21, 2014

Exclusive: Top Admiral Says China Likely to Keep Stealing Military Secrets

Dan Lamothe

Foreign Policy

Chinese hackers are so good at stealing U.S. military secrets that they’re likely to ignore official American protests and continue breaking into classified networks run by both the Pentagon and its most important contractors, the top U.S. military officer in the Pacific told Foreign Policy.

The United States is carefully watching the growing cyber capabilities of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, Adm. Samuel Locklear, the chief of U.S. Pacific Command, said in an interview. But China has been the most effective at stealing U.S. secrets. The admiral did not cite specific examples, but it is known that Chinese hackers have stolen design data for warplanes like the F/A-18 and F-35 fighter jets, helicopters like the Black Hawk, and ballistic missile systems like the Navy’s Aegis system. In remarkably candid comments, Locklear said China took advantage of holes in computer networks to steal secrets and stressed that Beijing doesn’t much care about what Washington has to say about it.

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