US worried about Chinese interference in cyberspace

The United States is worried about reports that China is interfering with Internet use worldwide, the State Department said Friday.

“We are concerned by reports that China has used a new cyber capability to interfere with the ability of worldwide Internet users to access content hosted outside of China,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said.

{mosads}The brief comment did not identify the exact source of the government’s worries, but indicates a willingness by the State Department to voice its displeasure as the White House debates the best way to deter hackers.

Rathke might have been referring to two reports: one identifying a major Chinese cyber weapon dubbed the Great Cannon, and another revealing that China is hijacking Facebook’s login button to redirect Internet traffic.

Security researchers published the two discoveries last month, spurring further concern about China’s vast offensive abilities in cyberspace.

The Great Cannon is considered extremely dangerous, in particular. A weapon that exists separately from China’s massive firewall, it could be used to spy on Web users that visit Chinese websites or even sites with advertising content that is merely hosted in China, researchers said.

Experts with the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Toronto made the discovery in the course of investigating a cyberattack on GitHub, a leading U.S. coding site.

China blamed overseas hackers last week for a similar incident in which Chinese Internet users visiting foreign pages with a Facebook login button were redirected to random sites.

It remains to be seen whether the State Department will identify the exact source of its concerns.

China is considered one of the United States’s top adversaries online, and has been blamed for hundreds of cyberattacks on U.S. companies and government agencies.

Still, U.S. officials are hesitant to raise tensions further by openly identifying China as the source of major attacks.

The issue of cybersecurity is increasingly dominating diplomatic relations between the two countries.

It was a topic of concern for Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew in their recent trips to China, and is expected to be a source of discussion when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Washington, D.C., in September.

Rathke’s comment was first reported by Reuters.