As tensions grow between the United States and China in the wake of its trade war, the Chinese military has confirmed that it will stop using Microsoft Windows on its computers and develop a customized operating system to improve security.
According to the military magazine Kanwa Asian Defense, Chinese military officials have made the decision to stop using Windows for fear of an attack by the United States, but they will not switch to Linux either, but will work on creating an entirely new platform and exclusive for military use.
A new exclusive operating system for military use
According to the information, the Chinese government knows very well what the United States is capable of after knowing the leaks of Snowden, Shadow Brokers and Vault7, they know that the Trump government has very powerful espionage weapons and they have the ability to attack almost to any connected device.
Given this, the Chinese government's approach will be to adopt "security by obscurity", which will start by launching the development of a customized operating system that will prevent foreign organizations from spying on and interfering in Chinese military operations.
This task of developing and replacing Windows will fall to the "Information Security Leadership Group on the Internet" which will respond directly to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and be separated from the military and intelligence departments. An operation similar to what the United States currently has with its Cyber Command, which is an independent arm of the US Department of Defense.
The "Internet Information Security Leadership Group" also seeks to replace a large part of the country's network devices, as well as to improve them with new systems to make it safer. According to the information, the Group states that the programmable logic controllers (PLC) developed in Germany, and used in 70% of China's industrial control systems, represent a huge risk to the national security of the country today.