Pentagon Concerned Japan Intel Systems Hacked by China

China has hacked Japan’s sensitive defense network in fall 2020 to the point that the Pentagon is wary and asking for increased intelligence systems access, but Japan has balked, The Washington Post reported.

“We were asking for an unprecedented level of access to their systems,” a source told the Post. “We were asking them to take their trust in us to a deeper level than we had before. And naturally any sovereign country would be cautious about that.”

A former senior military official added, “They were uncomfortable having another country’s military on their networks.”

Instead of U.S. access, Japan used domestic commercial vendors to study the vulnerabilities and work with a U.S. team to address the concerned.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been forced to issue a warning to Japan that intelligence sharing with the island nation would be hampered if security protocols could not be vetted and verified, according to the report.

“We see tremendous investment and effort from the Japanese in this area,” the senior defense official told the Post. “The department feels strongly about the importance of cybersecurity to our ability to conduct combined military operations, which are at the core of the U.S.-Japan alliance.”

Anne Neuberger, President Joe Biden’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, has prior knowledge of the Chinese hack of Japan before coming into her appointed position, the Post reported.

“We’re not here to wag fingers,” a senior administration official told the Post of the request for U.S. access to study Japan’s system vulnerability. “We’re here to share hard-won lessons.”

However, the ask is still a tall one, considering the U.S.’s own history of cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

“We can’t hold the Japanese to a standard that we ourselves can’t possibly meet,” the senior defense official told the Post.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to share information with them.

“We just want to do our best to keep our adversaries out.”