Kylin operating system 'impenetrable to US intelligence'
(05-13 10:44)
China has installed a secure operating system known as ''Kylin'' on government and military computers designed to be impenetrable to US military and intelligence agencies, The Washington Times reported.
Kylin's existence was disclosed to Congress during recent hearings that included new details on how Beijing is preparing to wage cyberwarfare with Washington.
Kevin Coleman, a private security specialist who discussed Kylin during the April 30 hearing of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said its deployment is significant because it has ''hardened'' key Chinese servers.
Coleman said Kylin has been under development since 2001 and the first computers to use it are government and military servers converted beginning in 2007.
''This action also made our offensive cybercapabilities ineffective against them, given the cyberweapons were designed to be used against Linux, UNIX and Windows,'' he said.
Coleman said state or state-affiliated entities are on a wartime footing in seeking electronic information from the US government, contractors and industrial computer networks.
Beijing has also developed a secure microprocessor that, unlike US-made chips, is known to be hardened against external access by a hacker or automated malicious software, he said.
''If you add a hardened microchip and a hardened operating system, that makes a really good solid platform for defending infrastructure,'' he said.
''In the cyberarena, China is playing chess while we're playing checkers,'' Coleman said, adding that China is equal to the United States and Russia in military cyberwarfare.
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