As the world economy becomes increasingly dependent on the internet, major powers are becoming aware of its potential as a staging ground for operations which serve to increase their power in the world. China is rising. That is clear. The rise of China is in no small part attributable to their online prowess. They have been accused by many states and NGOs of intellectual property theft, and this has worked to their advantage. Nearly every consumer technology product invented in the United States nearly immediately sees a Chinese knockoff sold at half the price. China has also become quite effective at producing military technology. China has launched their own version of GPS, called BeiDou, which does not have the restrictions on military usage and control by the government of the United States that GPS possesses.
Four Chinese military officials were indicted in the United States for the infamous Equifax hack that exposed the personal data of 147 million Americans. Likely these officials will never see a day in American courts; however, this action does set a precedent. By clearly taking a strong position against cyber-warfare, and declaring these types of cyberattacks illegal, future counterattacks and defensive actions by the United States can be legally justified.
China, the U.S., Russia and many other powers will have to invest in cybersecurity and offensive digital tools as cyberattacks increase in frequency and scope. Millions of citizens’ personal data is stored on the internet and it should be the goal of the respective governments of these nations to defend this data. The DOD, CIA and FBI have irreparably harmed American cybersecurity. By engineering backdoor access to most consumer technology, they have created easily exploitable security flaws which can and will be used by foreign powers to harm American security in the 21st century.