- Jan 23, 2021
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This is really bad. Our society will break down pretty quickly when food, water, and electricity are disrupted. We've been talking about hardening our infrastructure since at least 2010 when Stuxnet was discovered. We basically haven't done anything.
China-backed hackers have maintained access to American critical infrastructure for “at least five years” with the long-term goal of launching “destructive” cyberattacks, a coalition of U.S. intelligence agencies warned on Wednesday.
Volt Typhoon, a state-sponsored group of hackers based in China, has been burrowing into the networks of aviation, rail, mass transit, highway, maritime, pipeline, water and sewage organizations — none of which were named — in a bid to pre-position themselves for destructive cyberattacks, the NSA, CISA and FBI said in a joint advisory published on Wednesday.
This marks a “strategic shift” in the China-backed hackers’ traditional cyber espionage or intelligence gathering operations, the agencies said, as they instead prepare to disrupt operational technology in the event of a major conflict or crisis.
The release of the advisory, which was co-signed by cybersecurity agencies in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, comes a week after a similar warning from FBI Director Christopher Wray. Speaking during a U.S. House of Representatives committee hearing on cyber threats posed by China, Wray described Volt Typhoon as “the defining threat of our generation” and said the group’s aim is to “disrupt our military’s ability to mobilize” in the early stages of an anticipated conflict over Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.
China ‘Pre-Positioning’ Malware for Attacks on US Infrastructure During Conflict: CISA - This might be paywalled. Here's the important point -
China’s communist regime is pre-positioning malware in U.S. systems in preparation for a major conflict, according to the United States’ top cyber agency.
A Feb. 7 advisory released by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) seeks “to warn critical infrastructure organizations” about China’s attempts to infiltrate, disrupt, and destroy vital U.S. facilities.
“[Chinese] state-sponsored cyber actors are seeking to pre-position themselves on IT networks for disruptive or destructive cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure in the event of a major crisis or conflict with the United States,” the advisory said.
China-backed hackers have maintained access to American critical infrastructure for “at least five years” with the long-term goal of launching “destructive” cyberattacks, a coalition of U.S. intelligence agencies warned on Wednesday.
Volt Typhoon, a state-sponsored group of hackers based in China, has been burrowing into the networks of aviation, rail, mass transit, highway, maritime, pipeline, water and sewage organizations — none of which were named — in a bid to pre-position themselves for destructive cyberattacks, the NSA, CISA and FBI said in a joint advisory published on Wednesday.
This marks a “strategic shift” in the China-backed hackers’ traditional cyber espionage or intelligence gathering operations, the agencies said, as they instead prepare to disrupt operational technology in the event of a major conflict or crisis.
The release of the advisory, which was co-signed by cybersecurity agencies in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, comes a week after a similar warning from FBI Director Christopher Wray. Speaking during a U.S. House of Representatives committee hearing on cyber threats posed by China, Wray described Volt Typhoon as “the defining threat of our generation” and said the group’s aim is to “disrupt our military’s ability to mobilize” in the early stages of an anticipated conflict over Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.
China ‘Pre-Positioning’ Malware for Attacks on US Infrastructure During Conflict: CISA - This might be paywalled. Here's the important point -
China’s communist regime is pre-positioning malware in U.S. systems in preparation for a major conflict, according to the United States’ top cyber agency.
A Feb. 7 advisory released by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) seeks “to warn critical infrastructure organizations” about China’s attempts to infiltrate, disrupt, and destroy vital U.S. facilities.
“[Chinese] state-sponsored cyber actors are seeking to pre-position themselves on IT networks for disruptive or destructive cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure in the event of a major crisis or conflict with the United States,” the advisory said.
