shockedcanadian
Diamond Member
- Aug 6, 2012
- 32,258
- 29,613
China looking to shut down U.S infrastructure.
Imagine all the hundreds of billions wasted that could have upgraded and protected this old infrastructure could provide weak access for a foreign nation to win a war. Some Neo-Cons will smile at their own brilliance.
The Chinese government is running another broad campaign to hack as many American organizations as possible — heightening the threat across critical infrastructure.
Why it matters: The new hacking campaign suggests China could hold more expansive power to turn off key U.S. infrastructure than previously thought.
Driving the news: FBI director Christopher Wray said at the Aspen Cyber Summit on Wednesday that the bureau and its partners hijacked thousands of devices last week that a Chinese hacking group had infected with malware.
Flax Typhoon, a new China-backed hacking team, infected home routers, firewalls, storage devices, and Internet of Things devices like cameras and video recorders.
Zoom in: As of June, Flax Typhoon's botnet included more than 260,000 malware-infected devices across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia, according to a U.S. government advisory.
Half of the hijacked devices were located in the U.S., Wray said in his remarks.
Security researchers at Black Lotus Labs said in a coinciding report that hackers have used the botnet to target U.S. and Taiwanese organizations in the military, government, higher education, telecommunications, defense and IT sectors.
The FBI also alleged that the Flax Typhoon hackers worked for Integrity Technology Group, a Chinese tech company that does contract work for Beijing's intelligence agencies.
The FBI also said that Integrity Technology Group operated and controlled the botnet.
Threat level: A senior administration official told reporters that while Flax Typhoon is focused solely on espionage, its more destructive counterpart, Volt Typhoon, shared some of the infrastructure for its attacks.
The big picture: The threat of China lurking inside U.S. and other global networks is now existential for American companies and government agencies, Tom Fanning, former executive chairman at electric power operator Southern Company, told Axios.
Imagine all the hundreds of billions wasted that could have upgraded and protected this old infrastructure could provide weak access for a foreign nation to win a war. Some Neo-Cons will smile at their own brilliance.
The Chinese government is running another broad campaign to hack as many American organizations as possible — heightening the threat across critical infrastructure.
Why it matters: The new hacking campaign suggests China could hold more expansive power to turn off key U.S. infrastructure than previously thought.
Driving the news: FBI director Christopher Wray said at the Aspen Cyber Summit on Wednesday that the bureau and its partners hijacked thousands of devices last week that a Chinese hacking group had infected with malware.
Flax Typhoon, a new China-backed hacking team, infected home routers, firewalls, storage devices, and Internet of Things devices like cameras and video recorders.
Zoom in: As of June, Flax Typhoon's botnet included more than 260,000 malware-infected devices across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia, according to a U.S. government advisory.
Half of the hijacked devices were located in the U.S., Wray said in his remarks.
Security researchers at Black Lotus Labs said in a coinciding report that hackers have used the botnet to target U.S. and Taiwanese organizations in the military, government, higher education, telecommunications, defense and IT sectors.
The FBI also alleged that the Flax Typhoon hackers worked for Integrity Technology Group, a Chinese tech company that does contract work for Beijing's intelligence agencies.
The FBI also said that Integrity Technology Group operated and controlled the botnet.
Threat level: A senior administration official told reporters that while Flax Typhoon is focused solely on espionage, its more destructive counterpart, Volt Typhoon, shared some of the infrastructure for its attacks.
The big picture: The threat of China lurking inside U.S. and other global networks is now existential for American companies and government agencies, Tom Fanning, former executive chairman at electric power operator Southern Company, told Axios.
