Chinese hackers attacking the Commerce Department

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has been under attack from IPs sourced in China since early September, admitted the Commerce Department last Friday.  The Chinese systems have been hitting any system at the BIS that's exposed to the Internet with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks almost continuously, as well as successfully compromising some systems attached to the Internet.  The BIS deemed the attack to be serious enough that they shut down their Internet access all together and are rebuilding or replacing any system that might have been compromised.

Whether or not the hackers are sponsored by the Chinese government, or if the attacks are really even sourced in China, is still in question.  I find it highly unlikely that any government would be so brazen as to actively encourage this type of attack against another government.  However, they might be willing to turn a blind eye while it happens.  Another possibility is that the attacks aren't even really starting in China, that the attackers are just using a number of previously compromised systems to act as reflectors for their own attacks.  Is there a third possibility?

Personally, I think it's compromised systems that are being used in the attack.  If it is, this would be a perfect example of why it's becoming at least as important that we protect home systems as corporate systems.  Most home computers have nearly as much power as a corporate server and with the high speed Internet connections that are currently available, many homes are getting to the point where they have as big a pipe (or is that tube?) to the Internet as a small or medium business.  And when an attacker can aggregate several thousand home computers with high speed access, they can take down even some of the best protected government sites.