China is building a cyber army of hackers: Report
www.firstpost.com
Hackathons are common, but Chinese hacking competitions are different. China has been dominating popular international cybersecurity competitions like Pwn2Own. However, more recently, the country has developed its own hacking contests, essentially withdrawing from international events

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2653687

Archived version

Hackathons are common, but Chinese hacking competitions are different.

…

In 2017, Zhou Hongyi, the founder of Chinese cybersecurity giant Qihoo 360, publicly criticised the practice of sharing vulnerability discoveries internationally, arguing that such strategic assets should stay within China. His sentiments, supported by the Chinese government, gave birth to the national hacking competition called the Tianfu Cup. The contest is focused on discovering vulnerabilities in global tech products like Apple iOS, Google’s Android, and Microsoft systems.

How is Tianfu Cup different?

A 2018 rule mandates participants of the Tianfu Cup to hand over their findings to the government, instead of the tech companies.

Dakota Cary, a China-focused consultant at the US cybersecurity company SentinelOne, said, “In practice, this meant vulnerabilities were passed to the state for use in operations.”

This approach effectively turned hacking competitions into a government pipeline for acquiring zero-day vulnerabilities — software flaws unknown to vendors and extremely valuable for cyber-espionage.

…

In recent years, China’s hacking competitions have increasingly shifted focus toward breaching domestic products, including Chinese-made electric vehicles, phones, and security software.

…

  • Samskara@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    20 hours ago

    For some it’s an ambition, but not a priority. Germany simply doesn’t pay skilled people enough to serve as cyber soldier.

      • Samskara@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        20 hours ago

        It could help. Mandatory service typically gets you young people straight from school. That means you need to train them. To be good at cybersecurity and cyber warfare takes years though. Not something you can teach over the course of a year of service.

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
          1·
          20 hours ago

          If they get them straight from Gymnasium, there’s still time to pound the whole "love of country/fellow countrymen,” too. I don’t know because current generations are leaning alarmingly right.