US Weighing Payback for Enormous Chinese Hack

The United States government is working on plans to retaliate against China for its hacking of the Office of Personnel Management, where China gained access to the identifying information of more than 20 million government employees.

The New York Times reports that the United States hasn't settled on what that payback would entail, but the United States believes it is essential to take some sort of action in order to send a message to the Chinese that such attacks will not be tolerated. The United States also believes that if some sort of retribution doesn't take place, the Chinese will continue with their cyberattacks while also increasing their intensity.

One of the major concerns about mounting a counterattack on the Chinese is that it could result in a severe escalation of the relatively subdued cyber conflict and cause things to get out hand. Another issue weighing on the possible response is the fear of Chinese retribution against U.S. businesses or individuals in China.

For these reasons, one possible payback could be the outing of Chinese spies that the United States have identified on U.S. soil, but this could also result in a tit-for-tat outing by the Chinese of U.S. spies in China.

The Office of Personnel Management incident is not the first time the Chinese and United States have gone at it in cyberspace. In 2014, the United States issued indictments against members of an elite Chinese hacking squad that conducted industrial espionage against U.S. businesses. Legal action similar to the industrial espionage case is another possible avenue of U.S. retaliation, according to the Times.

Perhaps the most dramatic action being considered by the United States is an effort to create a hole in the "Great Firewall" which is the technological barriers imposed on the global Internet by the Chinese government so they can control what information is available at any given time.