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 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.”
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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.
WhatAreYouSaying05 on April 20th, 2024 at 20:41 UTC »
Is there any way America could hack China back? This is a hostile action that deserves retaliation
ryunista on April 20th, 2024 at 20:37 UTC »
What kind of damage could this cause? Could it be activated in peacetime and cause large scale inconvenience without escalating into war, or is it more of a total war kind of weapon? Or is it whatever China chooses?
felix1429 on April 20th, 2024 at 17:29 UTC »
Submission statement: According to the chief of the FBI, China has an ongoing cyberops campaign known as "Volt Typhoon" that has successfully gained access to multiple American critical infrastructure companies and facilities, such as energy, telecommunication, water, and more. The malware has not yet been activated, and the Chinese are waiting “for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow” to the US and introduce panic among the population. The FBI chief states that it is difficult to determine the intent of the malware, but the pre-positioning is aligned with China's intent to deter the US from defending Taiwan. Chinese government officials have denied involvement, but American private sector tech and cybersecurity companies have previously attributed Volt Typhoon to China, including Google and Microsoft.