An alleged campaign by Chinese state-sponsored hackers on targets in the US and Guam has raised fears that Beijing is preparing to disrupt communications in the Pacific in the event of a conflict.
The hacking campaign was first identified by Microsoft Corp on Wednesday and quickly confirmed by authorities in the US, UK and other allied nations.
Microsoft said the hacking group, which it dubbed Volt Typhoon, had breached government, communications, manufacturing and IT organizations in the US and Guam, a crucial military post in the western Pacific Ocean.
Photo: AP
While the identities of most of the hacking victims remains unknown, US Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro told CNBC on Thursday that the navy was affected by the intrusions.
The extent of the breach was not immediately known, and spokesperson for the navy declined to “discuss the status of our networks.”
Rob Joyce, senior adviser for cybersecurity strategy to the director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), on Thursday told CNN that Chinese hackers could still have access to sensitive US networks that they have targeted.
Joyce said the intrusions stood out in how brazen they were in “scope and scale.”
An NSA representative declined to comment and referred instead to a release by the NSA and other US agencies on the Chinese hacking group.
Microsoft said it had “moderate confidence” that the breaches were carried out in preparation to upend communications in the event of a crisis.
The company’s disclosure came amid mounting concerns that China might take military action against Taiwan.
Former NSA director of operations Jon Darby said the operation matched a well-known method of infiltrating networks by accessing them at the edges, rather than at what he called the bull’s-eye, and then remaining undetected for years.
“The interesting thing is they got in from home routers all the way into the US Navy infrastructure,” said Darby, who is not familiar with the details of this specific case.
“The scary thing is they could then launch disruptive or destructive attacks when things are hitting the fan,” he said. “If they’re in these networks they can wreak havoc. You’ve got to identify and plug up the vulnerabilities that allowed them to get into these networks and eradicate them.”
The NSA, along with intelligence agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK, also shared details on the hackers. The countries are all part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.
“We noted this extremely unprofessional report — a patchwork with a broken chain of evidence,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning (毛寧) said. “Apparently, this has been a collective disinformation campaign launched by the US through the Five Eyes to serve its geopolitical agenda.”
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