Chinese hackers have been secretly lurking in U.S. infrastructure, sometimes for up to five years, ready to carry out potentially devastating cyberattacks if the two countries go to war, federal officials said Wednesday. did.
The claims were made in a public cybersecurity alert from six U.S. government agencies and an alliance of cybersecurity and intelligence agencies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the largest and most recent of its kind. It’s one of the toughest.
Over the past year, U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that hackers working for Chinese intelligence agencies continue to gain covert access to U.S. infrastructure. They feared that such access could lead to a devastating cyberattack in the event of a major conflict, such as a Chinese invasion of the island, as the United States has said it will support Taiwan.
Although the report does not name specific victims, the hackers, who were “backed by the Chinese government,” were “primarily targeting the U.S. continental and non-US sectors, including the telecommunications, energy, transportation systems, and waste and sewage systems sectors. It targeted key infrastructure on the continent.” states and their territories. ”
One of the characteristics of this campaign is that the hackers’ tactics are so sophisticated that it is difficult for owners of infrastructure companies to realize that they have been hacked. The report is the first public indication that Chinese hackers have been working on the project for a very long time, or that they had been gaining access for years unnoticed.
While the United States does not typically accuse other countries of using its intelligence services to carry out cyberespionage, nor does it deny that it is involved in such activities, this report says it appears to be a hacker purely aiming to have the potential to wreak havoc on the entire world. Country.
The hackers’ “choice of targets and behavior patterns are inconsistent with traditional cyber espionage and intelligence gathering operations,” the report said. “U.S. copyright management agencies are concerned that these attackers could use their network access to have devastating effects in the event of potential geopolitical tensions or military conflict. .”
China has consistently denied most hacking allegations by Western governments and private cybersecurity companies. “China does not encourage, support or condone attacks by hackers,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said in an emailed statement about the report on Wednesday.
Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray announced that the same hacking campaign was “in preparation for Chinese hackers to attack American infrastructure in preparation for wreaking havoc on American citizens and communities and causing real-world damage should China decide the time is right.” It shows how we are positioned in the strike. ”