Relations between the US and China - particularly over Beijing's threats to annex Taiwan - have plummeted in recent years, prompting growing concern about the potential for hostilities or all-out conflict.
So recent revelations that a Chinese hacking network known as Volt Typhoon had been lying dormant inside US critical infrastructure for as long as five years have sparked considerable alarm.
The network exploited US technological and security weaknesses.
The Netherlands and Philippines have also recently publicly identified Chinese-backed hackers as targeting state networks and infrastructure.
They said it was part of a larger effort to infiltrate western critical infrastructure, including naval ports, internet service providers, communications services and utilities.
The new advisories on Volt Typhoon followed a recent announcement by US authorities that they had dismantled a bot network of hundreds of compromised devices, attributing it to the hacking network.
Volt Typhoon has been active since mid-2021, according to a Microsoft investigation published last year.
Evidence of Beijing's cyber-espionage campaigns has been building for more than two decades.
Spying has come into sharp focus over the past 10 years as western researchers tied breaches to specific units within the People's Liberation Army, and US law enforcement charged a string of Chinese officers with stealing American secrets.
The widespread nature of the hacks has led to a series of meetings between the White House and the private technology industry, including several telecommunications and cloud computing companies, in which the US government asked for assistance in tracking the activity.
Institutions and assets targeted by the now dismantled botnet were ordered by CISA in January to disconnect affected devices and products, starting off an intensive and difficult process of remediation.
This Cyber News was published on packetstormsecurity.com. Publication date: Tue, 13 Feb 2024 22:43:04 +0000