Chinese Government Stages ‘Hacking Contests’ to Target U.S.

The Chinese Communist Party is staging talent competitions with generous cash prizes to recruit elite hackers for cyberattacks against the United States, a mid-June report published by eth Zurich’s Center for Security Studies said.

The report states:

• The Chinese Communist Party has built “an elaborate multifaceted ‘hack-for-hire’ ecosystem.”
• The project is highly organized, relying on several leading Chinese universities and incorporating a “spectrum of cyberactivities.”
• Prizes range from the equivalent of a few thousand U.S. dollars to tens of thousands.
• It encourages many of China’s young technophiles to devote their time and energy to destroying America.
• The authors said it is “unlike anything we have ever seen before.”

Early warning: Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has warned on several occasions of the dangers of America’s—and especially the U.S. military’s—reliance on computer systems, which are vulnerable to cyberattack. In a January 1995 article, he wrote:

America is the greatest superpower this world has ever known. But we have a very vulnerable point in our military—our own Achilles’ heel. It is so dangerous that I am amazed it hasn’t received more publicity.

Mr. Flurry said these dangers reminded him of a Bible prophecy recorded in Ezekiel 7, which is addressed to “the land of Israel” in the time of “the end,” referring mainly to the U.S. and Britain in the modern era. This chapter describes a future time when God will punish these nations for their rejection of Him. Verse 14 describes one aspect of that punishment: “They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle.”

It seems everybody is expecting our people to go into battle, but the greatest tragedy imaginable occurs! Nobody goes to battle—even though the trumpet is blown! Will it be because of a computer terrorist?
—Gerald Flurry

In the Trumpet’s June 1999 issue, Mr. Flurry again sounded the alarm about the U.S. military’s vulnerability to cyberattacks, writing, “We could lose the next war before we even begin ….”

Learn more: Read “China Hacks America—and ‘None Goes to Battle.’”