A high-ranking U.S. intelligence official has expressed skepticism that the recent cyber agreement between the U.S. and China would stop the latter from executing further online attacks targeting American interests.

On Tuesday, James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he isn't "optimistic" about the success of the cyber agreement.

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President Barack Obama, who hosted President Xi Jinping at the White House on his first visit to the U.S., said Friday that they have arrived at a "common understanding" on economic cyberattacks. Both leaders agreed to never knowingly sponsor cyber theft of business trade secrets from either country. 

In response to a question from Senator John McCain, Clapper said the new agreement was a "good first step" in fighting economic cyber espionage. However, he said the agreement did not specify penalties for violating the pact. Clapper suggested that the U.S. should punish a violation of the agreement with economic sanctions, counter cyberattacks and other available legal tools.

Clapper expressed worries at the current state of the U.S. cyber security and the fact that Chinese cyber espionage targeting American intellectual secrets is getting sophisticated. He also raised questions about the level of the Chinese government's involvement in recent cyber-attacks against the U.S.

According to Clapper, the policy of the U.S. concerning the recent cyber agreement with China should be "trust but verify." He called for the international community to create and enforce a list of deterrents governing the behavior of states in cyber space.

"Such malicious cyber activity will continue and probably accelerate until we establish and demonstrate the capability to deter malicious state-sponsored cyber activity," Clapper said.

Top U.S. intelligence and military official say cyberattacks against the U.S. is getting more severe and sophisticated by the day. They have also expressed concerns that the Obama administration is not being aggressive in its response to deter cyberattacks.

The Obama administration has been criticized for not doing enough to respond to the recent theft of the personal data of over 10 million government employees. Although senior U.S. officials suspect China of being behind the massive breach of data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the government hasn't officially accused China.

Clapper said the government has not officially accused China for the OPM breach due to difficulties in establishing the origin of the cyber attackers.

Experts have said the OPM breach will have consequences for U.S. national security because the stolen information includes sensitive data on current, prospective and former government employees as well as their friends and family. There are fears that as a result, several U.S. intelligence officials working undercover in China could be exposed.

On Tuesday, according to Washington Post, the CIA started recalling officers from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing due to concerns that their identities have been exposed. The report indicates that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA) and Defense Intelligence Agency employees assigned to China are among those at risk.

Clapper said in discussing a cyberspace code of conduct and ensuing penalties, U.S. policymakers should be aware of the fact that America engages in cyber espionage too.

"We too practice cyber espionage and in a public forum, I'm not going to say how successful we are, but we're not bad," Clapper said. "I think it's a good idea to at least think about the old saw about people in glass houses should not throw rocks."

Beijing has consistently denied sponsoring cyber espionage and claims to also be victims of cyberattacks. On Wednesday, Hong Lei, spokesman of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the country's laws firmly opposes hacking.

TagsChina-U.S. Cyber Agreement, China Cyberattacks U.S., OPM hack, China Cyber Espionage America