Cyber attacks from China — is it time for us to start fighting back?

Early on during the Second World War there was a period known as the Phoney War, a point when everyone had declared war but nobody was actually attacking anyone yet. The exact opposite is what we’re seeing right now with online cyber-attacks. Officially no one has declared war, but the attacks are happening all the time, so much so that it seems ridiculous to keep talking about the imminent threat of cyberwar — the war is already taking place all around us.

Worse yet, we’re losing.

I wrote about this today on the Daily Beast in a piece headlined “China’s Secret Cyberwar.”

Key thing in the story was comments from Richard Clarke, former head of cybersecurity in the US, who says we need to start retaliating for when China attacks us. I asked, Won’t that invite retaliation from the Chinese and create the risk that we’ll just escalate things still further? Clarke says it will, “But it’s better than lying there prostrate having all your research and development and intellectual property stolen and doing nothing about it.” The piece has received a good number of comments. Apparently Clarke’s call for fighting back struck a nerve.