Alex Neill, China expert and head of the Asia Security Programme at the Royal United Services Institute, said cyber attacks by the Chinese reflected a new doctrine of the PLA described as "pressure point warfare" - the attacking of specific nodes to leave the adversary paralysed. Meanwhile, a war of words between Beijing and Washington broke out yesterday after China denied US officials' claims that Chinese military hackers had broken into its computers, including that of the defence secretary Robert Gates.

Chinese officials denied involvement in the Pentagon attack, according to Reuters:

"The Chinese government has consistently opposed and vigorously attacked according to the law all Internet-wrecking crimes, including hacking," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in Beijing. "Some people are making wild accusations against China ... They are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War mentality," she said.

Earlier this summer, Germany asserted their computer systems had been attacked by the Chinese as well. There must have been sufficient evidence for the issue to rise to the Chancellor's office:

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, raised reports of Chinese infiltration of German government systems when she met Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier. Mr Wen said after their meeting: “We in the Government took [the reports] as a matter of grave concern.”

No word yet from the Chinese government on this latest accusation. Whether the government is directly involved or not, someone is attacking and compromising these systems.

Now others are raising concerns about cyber-warfare. Take the article "Can India Survive a Chinese Cyber Attack" from the Indian Daily News and Analysis which asks:

How vulnerable is India to a cyber attack by the Chinese military? The chilling question assumes significance in the light of revelations that twice in the past three months, cyber-war experts within the Chinese military have been caught virtually red-handed hacking into defence and economic computer networks in Germany and the US.

and

The sensational episodes of online warfare raise critical questions about the preparedness - or lack thereof - of systems in India to withstand a cyber attack by China. Just last week, gaping holes in the Indian e-security environment were shown up when a Swedish "ethical hacker" blogged details of e-mail accounts and passwords of several Indian government institutions, including the Defence Research and Development Organisation, the National Defence Academy, and the Indian embassies in China and the US (among a few other countries).

If governments can attack like this for political gain, why not apply the same techniques for economic gain? This isn't just bad news for governments, it bad news period.