This 12-story building on the outskirts of Shanghai is the headquarters of Unit 61398 of the People’s Liberation Army. China’s defense ministry has denied that it is responsible for initiating digital attacks.

This article doesn’t really provide anything new for people following the issue of cyberattacks from China, but the article does offer in one place a good review of the activities China’s has been taken in recent years against the US in the cyberspace arena:

On the outskirts of Shanghai, in a run-down neighborhood dominated by a 12-story white office tower, sits a People’s Liberation Army base for China’s growing corps of cyberwarriors.

The building off Datong Road, surrounded by restaurants, massage parlors and a wine importer, is the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398. A growing body of digital forensic evidence — confirmed by American intelligence officials who say they have tapped into the activity of the army unit for years — leaves little doubt that an overwhelming percentage of the attacks on American corporations, organizations and government agencies originate in and around the white tower.

An unusually detailed 60-page study, to be released Tuesday by Mandiant, an American computer security firm, tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups — known to many of its victims in the United States as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group” — to the doorstep of the military unit’s headquarters. The firm was not able to place the hackers inside the 12-story building, but makes a case there is no other plausible explanation for why so many attacks come out of one comparatively small area.

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398,” said Kevin Mandia, the founder and chief executive of Mandiant, in an interview last week, “or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”  [New York Times]

So what is the US government doing about it?  At least publicly the US government is trying not to hurt the Chinese feelings:

The United States government is planning to begin a more aggressive defense against Chinese hacking groups, starting on Tuesday. Under a directive signed by President Obama last week, the government plans to share with American Internet providers information it has gathered about the unique digital signatures of the largest of the groups, including Comment Crew and others emanating from near where Unit 61398 is based.

But the government warnings will not explicitly link those groups, or the giant computer servers they use, to the Chinese army. The question of whether to publicly name the unit and accuse it of widespread theft is the subject of ongoing debate.

“There are huge diplomatic sensitivities here,” said one intelligence official, with frustration in his voice.

But Obama administration officials say they are planning to tell China’s new leaders in coming weeks that the volume and sophistication of the attacks have become so intense that they threaten the fundamental relationship between Washington and Beijing.

You can read the rest at the link, but considering how the Chinese are hacking into US critical infrastructure at what point does the government consider developing an intranet for critical infrastructure?

Anyway with China’s cyberwarfare capabilities on the rise, just think with the across the board sequestration cuts the US military’s Cyber Command would get cut just like everybody else.