On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN This Morning,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) argued that China almost certainly uses its legal requirement that software companies in the country have to turn over their source code to find vulnerabilities and launch cyberattacks against the government and American businesses.
Waltz said, “What has me even more concerned about the Chinese hackers is that, according to their law, if you’re a software company, like Microsoft, in China, you have to hand over to the government your source code. You have to hand over to the Chinese government when you find vulnerabilities in order to be able to do business there. So, you can imagine someone like Windows handing — or Microsoft handing over the source code to Windows, because they want to continue to make money in China and how that now is affecting our government agencies and our businesses.”
Co-host Erica Hill then asked, “Do you believe that’s a direct line, that the Chinese government is using that source code to then go around and go after U.S. government agencies potentially or businesses?”
Waltz answered, “Look, I can’t imagine that they’re not. And we know that the Chinese Communist Party is using — and, to an extent, the Russians as well — are using these hackers as an extension of the state and to conduct economic warfare on our businesses, one, to put them on their back foot, two, to penetrate our agencies, but often, to give their businesses a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.”
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