US Accused by China for Years of Cyber Espionage and Malware Campaigns
Hey there, it seems like the cyber world is heating up! Did you hear about China accusing the US of cyber spying? They’ve claimed that the US intelligence community has been incognito in their territory for over a decade. Pretty crazy, right?
According to the Chinese State Security, the National Security Agency (NSA) was behind it all the whole time. They’ve apparently been using their massive cyber attack arsenal to conduct surveillance, secret theft, and launch attacks worldwide. China happens to be one of the affected countries.
There’s even talk that the NSA supposedly targeted China directly to swipe valuable data resources. It goes back to 2009 when the NSA allegedly intruded into Huawei’s servers. Instead of being a one-time thing, they say these incidents have occurred tens of thousands of times since then, affecting a whole spectrum of organizations ranging from universities to state infrastructure.
Remember, though, we’re getting this story from the very country that intelligence services worldwide routinely name as a major player in global cyberattacks. In a report from our own Director of National Intelligence, it stated that China continues to be the “most active” cyber espionage threat to our government and private-sector networks.
Even our FBI Director, Christopher Wray, has emphasized the scale of China’s hacking operations, claiming that their threats have caused an increase in investigations by a staggering 1300%. That’s a heck of a climb!
More recently, an alleged Chinese threat actor group, Storm-0558, has been on the radar after several accusations from U.S. agencies and Microsoft. Word on the street is the group snagged a Microsoft signing key and used it to commit espionage on numerous U.S. government agencies and other entities.
But what’s China’s take on all this, you ask? Well their perspective is pretty different. They see themselves as the true victims here. They reckon the US is spreading lies to smear them as a cyber threat and isolate them from the rest of the world. China goes as far as calling the US “the world’s biggest hacking empire.”
They’ve even opened a new social media channel on WeChat to share their side of the story. It’s interesting seeing how this cyberspace tit-for-tat is affecting world politics. It’s surely going to shape the cybersecurity space as we know it.
In the meantime, stay cyber smart, folks! Let’s keep our Bay area networks safe and secure. And remember, not everything on the internet is as it seems. Heck, some Chinese state media employees were recently called out for posing as independent social media influencers to spread propaganda. So keep your wits about you!
Until next time, keep safe and stay informed.
by Morgan Phisher