Date: April 22nd, 2024 10:43 AM
Author: razzmatazz indecent scourge upon the earth station
FBI chief says Chinese hackers have infiltrated critical US infrastructure
Volt Typhoon hacking campaign is waiting ‘for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow’, says Christopher Wray
Reuters
Fri 19 Apr 2024 11.44 EDT
Share
Chinese government-linked hackers have burrowed into US critical infrastructure and are waiting “for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow”, the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, has warned.
An unknown hand typing on a laptop computer at night
Explainer: what is Volt Typhoon and why is it the ‘defining threat of our generation’?
Read more
An ongoing Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon has successfully gained access to numerous American companies in telecommunications, energy, water and other critical sectors, with 23 pipeline operators targeted, Wray said in a speech at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday.
China is developing the “ability to physically wreak havoc on our critical infrastructure at a time of its choosing”, Wray said at the 2024 Vanderbilt summit on modern conflict and emerging threats.
He added: “Its plan is to land low blows against civilian infrastructure to try to induce panic.”
Wray said it was difficult to determine the intent of this cyber pre-positioning, which was aligned with China’s broader intent to deter the US from defending Taiwan.
China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan strongly objects to China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s people can decide their future.
Earlier this week, a Chinese ministry of foreign affairs (MFA) spokesperson said Volt Typhoon was in fact unrelated to China’s government, but was part of a criminal ransomware group.
In a statement, China’s embassy in Washington referred back to the MFA spokesperson’s comment, saying: “Some in the US have been using origin-tracing of cyber-attacks as a tool to hit and frame China, claiming the US to be the victim while it’s the other way round, and politicizing cybersecurity issues.”
skip past newsletter promotion
Sign up to First Thing
Free daily newsletter
Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters
Enter your email address
Sign up
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion
Wray said China’s hackers operated a series of botnets – constellations of compromised personal computers and servers around the globe – to conceal their malicious cyber activities.
Private sector American technology and cybersecurity companies previously attributed Volt Typhoon to China, including reports by security researchers with Microsoft and Google.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask if you would consider supporting the Guardian’s journalism as we enter one of the most consequential news cycles of our lifetimes in 2024.
With the potential of another Trump presidency looming, there are countless angles to cover around this year’s election – and we'll be there to shed light on each new development, with explainers, key takeaways and analysis of what it means for America, democracy and the world.
From Elon Musk to the Murdochs, a small number of billionaire owners have a powerful hold on so much of the information that reaches the public about what’s happening in the world. The Guardian is different. We have no billionaire owner or shareholders to consider. Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest – not profit motives.
And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media: the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality. We always strive to be fair. But sometimes that means calling out the lies of powerful people and institutions – and making clear how misinformation and demagoguery can damage democracy.
From threats to election integrity, to the spiraling climate crisis, to complex foreign conflicts, our journalists contextualize, investigate and illuminate the critical stories of our time. As a global news organization with a robust US reporting staff, we’re able to provide a fresh, outsider perspective – one so often missing in the American media bubble.
Around the world, readers can access the Guardian’s paywall-free journalism because of our unique reader-supported model. That’s because of people like you. Our readers keep us independent, beholden to no outside influence and accessible to everyone – whether they can afford to pay for news, or not.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/19/fbi-china-hack-infrastructure
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5520319&forum_id=2#47601407)