Thread by @usacsmret

China Using OPM Records for Spying via @freebeacon freebeacon.com/national-secur…

China is mining intelligence from an estimated 23 million records of American federal workers, including intelligence and security personnel, stolen in cyberattacks against the Office of Personnel Management,

"They can run through those 23 million names in a heartbeat and connect dots in a heartbeat," Stewart said during remarks to a meeting of the Committee on the Present Danger: China.

The OPM hack was considered one of the most damaging breaches of personnel security for the U.S. government ever. The operation by China took place in 2014 and was discovered in June 2015. China's role was kept secret during the Barack Obama administration.

Ed Timperlake, a former Pentagon official, said the OPM breach was the result of poor computer security. But he also said because China stole sensitive information contained in the SF-86 documents, there should be U.S. retaliation.

Timperlake said the U.S. government—intelligence agencies or the military, which now has a Cyber Command—should go on the offensive and retaliate for the OPM theft as well as other technology theft.

One option could be to conduct clandestine hacking or other electronic operations to destroy the stolen OPM records inside China's networks used by security and intelligence services.

The Chinese military's Third Department of the General Staff, known as 3PLA, is believed to have been the agency that carried out the attacks. Other reports have said the Ministry of State Security, the civilian intelligence service, carried out the cyber operation.

Another option would be to take asymmetric action and conduct destructive cyberattacks on the Chinese intelligence agencies behind the OPM breach, with the goal of damaging the infrastructure and systems used for China's cyberattacks.

Third, the United States could conduct personal cyberattacks on Chinese government and Communist Party officials that were linked to the attacks.

"We need to go right back at them," Timperlake said.

Regarding reports that Samir Jain, White House cyber security director during the Obama administration, has registered as a lobbyist for China's Huawei Technologies, Stewart said, "it's difficult for me to understand that there's not a conflict there."

"You can't say that Huawei is just another technology company because they are not," he said.
Huawei has been linked by the FBI to economic espionage operations.