Close Menu
    What's Hot

    Bitcoin ETFs Bleed $812M as Ether ETFs Break 20-Day Inflow Streak

    August 3, 2025

    This Interview Question Helps Me Decide Who Is Right for the Job

    August 3, 2025

    Target Salaries Revealed: How Much Tech Workers Make in 2025

    August 3, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Hot Paths
    • Home
    • News
    • Politics
    • Money
    • Personal Finance
    • Business
    • Economy
    • Investing
    • Markets
      • Stocks
      • Futures & Commodities
      • Crypto
      • Forex
    • Technology
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Hot Paths
    Home»Politics»F.B.I. Director Warns of China Hacking Threat
    Politics

    F.B.I. Director Warns of China Hacking Threat

    Press RoomBy Press RoomJanuary 31, 2024No Comments5 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Christopher A. Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, warned on Wednesday that China was ramping up an extensive hacking operation geared at taking down the United States’ power grid, oil pipelines and water systems in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.

    Mr. Wray, appearing before a House subcommittee on China, offered an alarming assessment of the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts. Its intent is to sow confusion, sap the United States’ will to fight and hamper the American military from deploying resources if the dispute over Taiwan, a major flashpoint between the two superpowers, escalates into a war, he added.

    Before his testimony, F.B.I. and Justice Department officials revealed that last month, they had obtained a court order that authorized them to gain access to servers infiltrated by Volt Typhoon, a Beijing-directed hacking network that has targeted a range of critical infrastructure systems, often by infiltrating small businesses, contractors or local government networks.

    “China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if or when China decides the time has come to strike,” said Mr. Wray, who pressed the committee to increase funding for the bureau.

    “Low blows against civilians are part of China’s plan,” he added.

    Hackers for Volt Typhoon compromised hundreds of Cisco and NetGear routers, many of them outdated models no longer supported by manufacturer updates or security patches, in an effort to embed an army of sleeper cells that would be activated in a crisis.

    In May, U.S. officials warned business, local governments and foreign allies that the group was taking aim at “networks across U.S. critical infrastructure sectors” and was likely to apply the same techniques against other countries.

    The operation was stopped before it affected the “legitimate functions” of infrastructure agencies and China did not seem to have collected “content information” from the routers.

    The government is informing owners of the equipment, officials said.

    Speaking to reporters a day earlier, Gen Paul M. Nakasone, the director of the National Security Agency and the head of Cyber Command, said his organizations were working with partners to better understand what China was doing with the Volt Typhoon intrusions on critical infrastructure. “We have found the Chinese in our critical infrastructure and that’s just wrong,” he said.

    In his testimony, Mr. Wray said a major hurdle in countering Chinese hacking operations was the reluctance of small business owners and local governments to inform the F.B.I. of suspicious activity on their networks, which could “prevent the attack from metastasizing to other sectors and other businesses.”

    Also on Wednesday, the department unsealed an indictment against four Chinese citizens. They are accused of operating a yearslong conspiracy to smuggle electronic components from the United States to Iran, in violation of longstanding sanctions and restrictions on the export of military technology to the Islamic Republic.

    The suspects, who all live in China, are charged with using front companies to funnel components that could be used to build drones and ballistic missile systems to Iran from 2007 to at least 2020, according to the indictment in Federal District Court in Washington.

    As a result, a “vast amount” of U.S. technology was diverted to Iran, prosecutors said. They did not specify the potential harm to national security.

    In recent months, the F.B.I. and Justice Department have intensified their warnings about malicious activity by China, Iran and Russia inside the United States. Those include murder-for-hire plots against dissidents, efforts to infiltrate U.S. law enforcement agencies, election interference, intellectual property theft and online breaches like those Mr. Wray and cybersecurity officials identified at the hearing on Wednesday.

    Mr. Wray has for years emphasized the threat from China, describing it as existential.

    “It’s a threat to our economic security — and by extension, to our national security,” Mr. Wray said in 2020.

    China has often taken aim at the weakest links in the country’s business and government networks, particularly outdated home-office routers that allow them to hack into more sophisticated computer systems, officials said.

    The goal is to “induce societal panic” to discourage the United States from supporting Taiwan or more aggressively confronting Beijing on other geopolitical and economic issues, said Jen Easterly, the director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

    Ms. Easterly suggested that officials in Beijing might have been motivated to focus on civilian infrastructure after the 2021 ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline by a Russian hacking collective.

    “Imagine that on a massive scale — imagine not one pipeline, but many pipelines disrupted,” she said. “Telecommunications going down so people can’t use their cellphone. People start getting sick from polluted water. Trains get derailed.”

    Beijing has long denied targeting U.S. civilian infrastructure, and senior Chinese officials recently told the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, that they would not influence the outcome of the 2024 election by infiltrating networks.

    American hackers target China’s military and government servers, but have historically avoided the kind of infrastructure attacks directed by Beijing, General Nakasone said in his testimony on Wednesday.

    “Responsible cyberactors of democracies like our own do not target the civilian infrastructure,” he said. “There’s no reason for them to be in our water. There’s no reason for them to be in our power. This is a decision by an actor to actually focus on civilian targets.”

    Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Press Room

    Related Posts

    What’s Kat Abughazaleh’s Deal? | The Nation

    April 7, 2025

    The Making of Chuck Schumer

    April 6, 2025

    Smoke Signals

    April 4, 2025
    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    LATEST NEWS

    Bitcoin ETFs Bleed $812M as Ether ETFs Break 20-Day Inflow Streak

    August 3, 2025

    This Interview Question Helps Me Decide Who Is Right for the Job

    August 3, 2025

    Target Salaries Revealed: How Much Tech Workers Make in 2025

    August 3, 2025

    Arkham Uncovers $3.5B Bitcoin Theft from Chinese Mining Pool Stolen in 2020, Largest Theft Ever

    August 3, 2025
    POPULAR
    Business

    The Business of Formula One

    May 27, 2023
    Business

    Weddings and divorce: the scourge of investment returns

    May 27, 2023
    Business

    How F1 found a secret fuel to accelerate media rights growth

    May 27, 2023
    Advertisement
    Load WordPress Sites in as fast as 37ms!

    Archives

    • August 2025
    • July 2025
    • June 2025
    • May 2025
    • April 2025
    • March 2025
    • February 2025
    • January 2025
    • December 2024
    • November 2024
    • April 2024
    • March 2024
    • February 2024
    • January 2024
    • December 2023
    • November 2023
    • October 2023
    • September 2023
    • May 2023

    Categories

    • Business
    • Crypto
    • Economy
    • Forex
    • Futures & Commodities
    • Investing
    • Market Data
    • Money
    • News
    • Personal Finance
    • Politics
    • Stocks
    • Technology

    Your source for the serious news. This demo is crafted specifically to exhibit the use of the theme as a news site. Visit our main page for more demos.

    We're social. Connect with us:

    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest YouTube

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
    • Home
    • Buy Now
    © 2025 ThemeSphere. Designed by ThemeSphere.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.