Are US Computer Networks A 'Key Battlefield' in any Future Conflict with China? (msn.com)
- Reference: 0175834167
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/05/2023229/are-us-computer-networks-a-key-battlefield-in-any-future-conflict-with-china
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/how-chinese-hackers-graduated-from-clumsy-corporate-thieves-to-military-weapons/ar-AA1wY8ZP
> The message from President Biden's national security adviser was startling. Chinese hackers had [2]gained the ability to shut down dozens of U.S. ports, power grids and other infrastructure targets at will, Jake Sullivan told telecommunications and technology executives at a secret meeting at the White House in the fall of 2023, according to people familiar with it. The attack could threaten lives, and the government needed the companies' help to root out the intruders.
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> What no one at the briefing knew, including Sullivan: China's hackers [3]were already working their way deep inside U.S. telecom networks , too. The two massive hacking operations have upended the West's understanding of what Beijing wants, while revealing the astonishing skill level and stealth of its keyboard warriors — once seen as the cyber equivalent of noisy, drunken burglars. China's hackers were once thought to be interested chiefly in business secrets and huge sets of private consumer data. But the latest hacks make clear they are now soldiers on the front lines of [4]potential geopolitical conflict between the U.S. and China , in which cyberwarfare tools are expected to be powerful weapons. U.S. computer networks are a "key battlefield in any future conflict" with China, said Brandon Wales, a former top U.S. cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security, who closely tracked China's hacking operations against American infrastructure. He said prepositioning and intelligence collection by the hackers "are designed to ensure they prevail by keeping the U.S. from projecting power, and inducing chaos at home."
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> As [5]China increasingly threatens Taiwan , working toward what Western intelligence officials see as a [6]target of being ready to invade by 2027 , the U.S. could be pulled into the fray as the island's most important backer... Top U.S. officials in both parties have warned that China [7]is the greatest danger to American security .
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> In the infrastructure attacks, which began at least as early as 2019 and are still taking place, hackers connected to China's military embedded themselves in arenas that spies usually ignored, including a water utility in Hawaii, a port in Houston and an oil-and-gas processing facility. Investigators, both at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and in the private sector, found the hackers lurked, sometimes for years, periodically testing access. At a regional airport, investigators found the hackers had secured access, and then returned every six months to make sure they could still get in. Hackers spent at least nine months in the network of a water-treatment system, moving into an adjacent server to study the operations of the plant. At a utility in Los Angeles, the hackers searched for material about how the utility would respond in the event of an emergency or crisis. The precise location and other details of the infrastructure victims are closely guarded secrets, and couldn't be fully determined.
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> American security officials said they believe the infrastructure intrusions — carried out by a group dubbed Volt Typhoon — are at least in part aimed at disrupting Pacific military supply lines and otherwise impeding America's ability to respond to a future conflict with China, including over a potential invasion of Taiwan... The focus on Guam and West Coast targets suggested to many senior national-security officials across several Biden administration agencies that the hackers were focused on Taiwan, and doing everything they could to slow a U.S. response in a potential Chinese invasion, buying Beijing precious days to complete a takeover even before U.S. support could arrive.
The telecom breachers "were also able to swipe from Verizon and AT&T a list of individuals the U.S. government was surveilling in recent months under court order, which included suspected Chinese agents. The intruders used known software flaws that had been publicly warned about but hadn't been patched."
And ultimately nine U.S. telecoms were breached, according to America's deputy national security adviser for cybersecurity — including what appears to have been a preventable breach at AT&T (according to "one personal familiar with the matter"):
> [T]hey took control of a high-level network management account that wasn't protected by multifactor authentication, a basic safeguard. That granted them access to more than 100,000 routers from which they could further their attack — a serious lapse that may have allowed the hackers to copy traffic back to China and delete their own digital tracks.
The details of the various breaches are stunning:
> Chinese hackers gained a foothold in the digital underpinnings of one of America's largest ports in just 31 seconds. At the Port of Houston, an intruder acting like an engineer from one of the port's software vendors entered a server designed to let employees reset their passwords from home. The hackers managed to download an encrypted set of passwords from all the port's staff before the port recognized the threat and cut off the password server from its network...
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/how-chinese-hackers-graduated-from-clumsy-corporate-thieves-to-military-weapons/ar-AA1wY8ZP
[2] https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-disables-chinese-hacking-operation-that-targeted-critical-infrastructure-184bb407
[3] https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/china-cyberattack-internet-providers-260bd835
[4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/us-military-future-china-russia-2136888f
[5] https://www.wsj.com/world/china/taiwan-leader-urges-calm-amid-military-threats-from-beijing-a4d614fa
[6] https://www.wsj.com/articles/cia-chief-says-china-has-doubts-about-its-ability-to-invade-taiwan-670b8f87
[7] https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-defense-strategy-casts-china-as-greatest-danger-to-american-security-11666885023
and who will pick up the tab for changing out of t (Score:2)
and who will pick up the tab for changing out of the cheapest bidder for outsourced IT
Old pot calling new kettle black (Score:1)
Snowden showed us how insistent Bush and Cheney were about expanding US dominance and direct control over foreign governments. It's no surprise that others have since decided not to sit idly by.
Future Conflict? Where has the WSJ been for the pa (Score:1)
Future Conflict? Where has the WSJ been for the past few decades?
Re: (Score:2)
That rag is pure Project Mockingbird.
The number of "anonymous intelligence sources" articles is staggering.
Assign zero credibility. Some won't be wrong but you can't trust any.
Betteridge's Law (Score:2)
No.
China's computer networks will be the key battlefield in a cyber war.
Ukraine shows us that war is still a matter of hardware spilling blood in the mud and not much happens on the cyber front beyond propaganda.
Cyber interruption of the power grid isn't a thing, so much as missiles into the power plant.
More like a "Key Embarrassment". (Score:3)
The US has made the strategic mistake of allowing its industry to have "cheap" IT Security with no consequences, completely overlooking that networks happen to be global and that there is really no way to change that. So not a "battlefield". More a "site of an upcoming and long-term catastrophic defeat".
Good luck!
As to Europe, the situation is a bit better due to stricter privacy laws, which also demand IT security according to the state-of-the-art and that come with real penalties. Not really good either with things like o365 and US clouds in use, but at least the topic has not been completely ignored. There is also KRITIS (NIS2) which will bring regulation, penalties and reporting to a lot of industries that did not have any so far. The US would do well to copy all that posthaste.
Do they have Microsoft machines on them? (Score:2)
Do these networks have Microsoft machines on them? If so then they are death zones for corporate security. Re-image all those machines with Linux and now you've got a citadel instead of a flophouse.
Re: Do they have Microsoft machines on them? (Score:2)
Not even Linux might be enough these days. Maybe the MLS version of Linux.
Stupid question (Score:1)
42
War? (Score:2)
Its clear there is a propaganda war going on. There is no discussion here of US capabilities. But if the Chinese deadline for an invasion of Taiwan really is 2027 we ought to be very worried. It appears that the general approach to deadlines in China is to under-promise and over-deliver. If the real deadline is 2025, they are likely nearly ready now. Of course the whole idea that China is getting ready to invade Taiwan absent the provocation of the Taipei government formally declaring independence may be an
Yes (Score:3, Informative)
Duh.
Re: Yes (Score:3)
Especially since many critical systems now are cloud based and not local, so just deny the cloud access and a company may go under.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. But not only with China. Too many US organizations and Enterprises are laughably easy to hack, due to a lack or regulation. The market will not do it.
Re: (Score:2)
China is certainly not the only threat. Russia, Iran and North Korea are in that list as well. And vulnerabilities are not specific to the US, they are just the biggest target. Plenty of news stories of hacking incidents by the above actors all throughout the western world on a regular basis If you are sitting back feeling safe because you think your government has it all under control, you shouldn't.