Chinese hackers aim to ‘wreak havoc’ on US critical infrastructure: NPR

FBI Director Christopher Wray will testify Wednesday in the U.S.-Chinese Communist Party committee’s House selection strategy competition.

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Kevin Dietch/Getty Images

FBI Director Christopher Wray will testify Wednesday in the U.S.-Chinese Communist Party committee’s House selection strategy competition.

Kevin Dietch/Getty Images

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday that Chinese hackers are trying to take down critical U.S. infrastructure, including water treatment plants, pipelines and power grids, so that the Chinese government can “wreak havoc” in the United States if it so chooses. He said he was targeting them.

Testifying before the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Wray also warned that too little public attention is being paid to the threat he claims China’s efforts pose to national security.

“If China decides the time is right for an attack, Chinese hackers are prepared to wreak havoc on U.S. infrastructure and cause real-world harm to American people and communities,” Wray told lawmakers. “There is,” he said.

“They are not only focused on political and military objectives. If you look at where they are located across the civilian infrastructure, a low blowout is only a possibility in the event of a conflict. We see that there is no. A low blow against civilians is part of China’s plan.”

The FBI director has been a fierce critic of the People’s Republic of China, repeatedly warning that China poses a generational threat to the United States, and he raised the topic again on Wednesday.

“China’s cyberattacks go far beyond preparing for future conflicts,” he said. “Today, and literally every day, they actively attack our economic security and engage in the massive theft of our innovation, personal data, and corporate data.”

U.S. officials have long accused China of a relentless campaign to steal American intellectual property, trade secrets and government secrets in an effort to overtake the United States as the preeminent world power.

The FBI has been at the forefront of efforts to counter Chinese state and corporate espionage, and Wray said in the past that the agency had a new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours.

The House Select Committee on the Communist Party of China focuses on the challenges China poses to the United States and how to counter them, a rare example of bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill.

The FBI director testified on a panel along with senior national security officials focused on cybersecurity, including Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly. NSA Director General Paul Nakasone and National Cyber ​​Director Harry Coker Jr. also testified.

Coker said the United States is competing with China, but “we need to manage competition responsibly to avoid conflict and conflict.”

“We can do that by continuing to operate with confidence, not ceding the initiative, not just being on the defensive, and being as strong as America has always been,” he said. Ta.

The hearing came on the same day that the Justice Department announced it had disrupted a Chinese state-sponsored hacking campaign that targeted U.S. critical infrastructure.

Officials say hackers known as Bolt Typhoon have planted malware on hundreds of small office and home routers, most of them older Cisco and Netgear devices that are no longer eligible for software updates. It is said that

Chinese hackers used these compromised routers as a launching pad to hide the identities of foreigners and target critical infrastructure in the United States.

“The Bolt Typhoon malware allowed China to conceal pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation of critical infrastructure in the communications, energy, transportation, and water sectors, among others,” Ray said. “The steps China was taking, in other words, were to discover and prepare to destroy or destroy the civilian infrastructure that underpins our security and prosperity.”

Justice Department and FBI officials said the FBI removed the malware from the infected routers in a court-authorized operation. We have also taken steps to prevent compromised devices from becoming reinfected.