Chinese Hackers Infiltrate Critical US Systems Under Volt Typhoon Cyber Campaign.
Some hacking groups affiliated with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have successfully gained access to crucial infrastructural assets in the United States, posing a threat to national security.
The Washington Post, in a detailed report, disclosed that these cyber attackers have targeted key entities, including power and water utilities, marking a significant escalation in China’s Volt Typhoon cyber campaign.
According to the report, hackers linked to the PLA have breached the computer systems of at least two dozen critical entities within the past year. Among the targeted services were a water utility in Hawaii, a US West Coast port, and an oil and gas pipeline.
Shockingly, the hackers even attempted to breach Texas’ power grid, which operates independently from the electrical systems in the rest of the country.
The Volt Typhoon cyber campaign, initially detected by the US government about a year ago, is now being characterized by a broader effort by China to sow chaos, induce panic, and disrupt logistics in the United States, as revealed by The Washington Post.
Although none of the intrusions resulted in critical malfunctions or disruptions, officials expressed concern over the attack on Hawaii, home to the Pacific Fleet of the US Navy. The report suggests that this attention to Hawaii indicates the Chinese military’s intent to complicate US efforts to deploy troops to the region, particularly in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.
Brandon Wales, executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), highlighted the shift in Chinese cyber activity, stating, “It is very clear that Chinese attempts to compromise critical infrastructure are in part to pre-position themselves to be able to disrupt or destroy that critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict, to either prevent the United States from being able to project power into Asia or to cause societal chaos inside the United States – to affect our decision-making around a crisis.”
The report details the hackers’ method of masking their tracks by utilizing devices such as home or office routers before reaching their intended victims. Their primary objective was to steal employee credentials, allowing them to return as normal users rather than using a backdoor entry.
Joe McReynolds, a China security studies fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, explained the significance of the attackers’ focus on Hawaii, stating that any disruption on the island of Oahu, where the Pacific Fleet is based, could weaken the US Navy’s timely activation for the critical movement to assist Taiwan.