American intelligence community believes the attacks could have been part of Beijing’s effort to learn more about the internal debates within both the campaigns. One of the boldest cyber attacks against the U.S. government occurred last year when the Pentagon computer systems serving the Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates were hacked. Washington suspects the involvement of Chinese military intelligence. Beijing, however, denies these allegations and says it too has been a victim of cyber attacks.
The writer is a Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singaporeiscrmohan@ntu.edu.sg