Posted on 04/18/2024 8:17:21 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last May I wrote about a group of Chinese hackers who'd been identified by Microsoft after malware was discovered in telecom systems on the island of Guam. Microsoft named the hacking group "Volt Typhoon."
Microsoft called the hacking group “Volt Typhoon” and said that it was part of a state-sponsored Chinese effort aimed at not only critical infrastructure such as communications, electric and gas utilities, but also maritime operations and transportation. The intrusions appeared, for now, to be an espionage campaign. But the Chinese could use the code, which is designed to pierce firewalls, to enable destructive attacks, if they choose.
Today, FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke at a summit on emerging threats in Nashville and talked about Volt Typhoon and the threat presented by Chinese hackers.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] has made it clear that it considers every sector that makes our society run as fair game in its bid to dominate on the world stage, and that its plan is to land low blows against civilian infrastructure to try to induce panic and break America’s will to resist,” he said in remarks at the Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats in Nashville...
“The fact is, the PRC’s targeting of our critical infrastructure is both broad and unrelenting,” he said. And, he added, the immense size—and expanding nature—of the CCP’s hacking program isn’t just aimed at stealing American intellectual property. “It’s using that mass, those numbers, to give itself the ability to physically wreak havoc on our critical infrastructure at a time of its choosing,” he said.
Wray gave this example of a trap set up for the hackers which suggested they were interested in more than profit.
“When one victim company set up a honeypot—essentially, a trap designed to look like a legitimate part of a computer network with decoy documents—it took the hackers all of 15 minutes to steal data related to the control and monitoring systems, while ignoring financial and business-related information, which suggests their goals were even more sinister than stealing a leg up economically,” he said.
For its part, China has released a report claiming that Microsoft's investigation (the one that named Volt Typhoon last year) was mistaken. The hackers aren't backed by the state China claims, but simply criminals looking for ransomware opportunities. Here's what state media had to say just a few days ago.
Multiple cybersecurity authorities in the US have been pushing "China-sponsored" Volt Typhoon false narrative just for seeking more budgets from the US Congress. Meanwhile, Microsoft and other US cybersecurity companies also want more big contracts from US cybersecurity authorities, according to a report about the investigation...
Volt Typhoon hacker group is a ransomware cybercriminal organization without state or regional support background, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a regular press conference on Monday commenting on the investigation report, saying that various signs indicate that US intelligence community and cybersecurity companies are colluding to fabricate so-called evidence and spread false information that the Chinese government supports cyberattacks against the US, in order to seek congressional budget appropriations and government contracts.
No doubt this is the sort of plausible deniability China planned on if its hackers were caught. But US allies seem convinced that Volt Typhoon is a very large Chinese operation.
Daniel Cuthbert, who sat on the UK Government Cyber Security Advisory Board, said the Volt Typhoon hacking system is bigger than anything China has unleashed before...
"In essence, Volt Typhoon is a campaign, albeit a very large one, by Chinese state agents actively gaining access to industrial control systems and other critical national infrastructure," Cuthbert told Newsweek.
"Similar campaigns have been happening for a very long time, but I think what has surprised many, including myself, was the sheer scale of the campaign."
China can continue to deny it is involved but clearly our intel agencies are onto what they have been doing and have been removing the malware from compromised computers. Whatever China was planning to do with this capability, it probably won't be able to now.
Let her rip!
I think some state actors have been conducting low level biological attacks too, on agriculture, forestry, and just general ailments to bring down productivity.
I have never seen so many people getting repeatedly sick in my life as this winter and spring.
Well, those are mostly Maoist Democrats too.
It is weird that they are only talking about the Chinese when it has been China, the Norks, the Iranians, and the Russians, Belarussians, too. Not to mention all the weenies in South Asia trying to get grannies to buy gift cards.
The whole Belt and Road Initiative membership is full of hackers.
I remember during the 2016 election Georgia asked the DOJ why they were poking their fingers into the election systems.
DIJ made some lame excuses of “we were just looking” or something like that.
I wonder how many others remember that.
How many Huawei routers, for example, in critical sites these days ?
“Whatever China was planning to do with this capability, it probably won’t be able to now. ”
The FBI has saved the day 😂🙄
Shows how pathetically bad we are at preventing cyber attacks... but we’re damned good at DEI.
and we are so pure that there is NO way we’d be doing ANYTHING in the reverse direction towards China!
I would say that it's more a matter of us lacking the competence to do to the chicoms what they are doing to us. Also a lack of will due to seriously compromised people at the top. It is because our govt. is NOT pure that we don't reciprocate.
I have been at about a dozen FBI/Homeland security/other groups ( that shall remain unnamed ) briefings since @2002. In this matter all of them have taken all this very seriously, and over the years they have placed lots of mandates on system operators.
There is a heck of a lot behind this statement.
that is an act of war
on the homeground
Are the stupid libtards happy yet?
That’s the clot shots.
I don’t have time to explain why.
A combination of original antigenic sin,
an overreliance in the multiply-jabbed upon the adaptive immune system instead of the innate immune system, a shift in the multply-jabbed to IgG4 antibodies, and several other items.
I only know what the PTB tell me.
We’re China’s cash cow.
No need to worry until we stop being profitable for them. Then they’ll come for our land.
Tell me again why the systems running critical infrastructure are connected to the internet in the first place? They should be air-gapped.
Don’t announce it STOP IT
No one trusts the ‘FBI/Homeland security/other groups’
Red China has good reasons to not want Trump in power. Billions of reasons. They will do anything to keep Joe Biden’s cabal in office. Printing a few million ballots—no problem. Ever wonder why the Democrats are NOT panicked about the election? Why, its in the bag. They know that Trump will never serve a day in the White House—even if he wins a landslide. Watch, and I hope I am wrong! I pray to God I am wrong. If I am right—what is left?
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