Over half of cyber-attacks exploiting known vulnerabilities are the work of state-sponsored groups from abroad, mainly from China. According to cybersecurity company Recorded Future’s research arm, Insikt Group, 53 percent of observed exploitation activity in the first half of this year was driven by state-sponsored and suspected state-sponsored actors and conducted for espionage, surveillance, or other geopolitical objectives.
The Chinese government now has a vast storehouse of confidential information belonging to key industries and individuals in the US and UK and many other countries. According to an urgent joint cybersecurity advisory issued by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other U.S. and foreign organizations, threat actors sponsored by the Chinese government, notably Salt Typhoon, have been consistently targeting telecommunications, government, transportation, lodging, and military infrastructure networks globally.
Lenovo PCCW Solutions is collaborating with leading Chinese cybersecurity firm Qi An Xin Technology to launch the first Security Operation Centre, aiming to address the urgent need for cybersecurity solutions amidst the surge of cyber threats.
‘Smishing’ – cybercrime involving sending deceptive SMS text messages – has just been taken to a new and dangerous level by China’s crime syndicates. Cybersecurity company, Resecurity, has discovered a devastating new smishing kit known as “Panda Shop,” which comes complete with interactive manuals on how to use it.
On January 31, Texas became the first US state to ban the Chinese-owned generative artificial intelligence (AI) application, DeepSeek, on state-owned devices and networks. New York swiftly followed suit on February 10 with Virginia imposing a ban on February 11.
The Texas state governor’s office stated: “Texas will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate our state’s critical infrastructure through data-harvesting AI and social media apps. State agencies and employees responsible for handling critical infrastructure, intellectual property, and personal information must be protected from malicious espionage operations by the Chinese Communist Party. Texas will continue to protect and defend our state from hostile foreign actors.”
Cybercriminals have been quick to see nefarious possibilities in search engine giant Google’s new Gemini 2.0 AI assistant. According to Google’s own findings, nation-state-backed threat actors are already leveraging Gemini to accelerate their criminal campaigns.
The actors are using Gemini 2.0 for “researching potential infrastructure and free hosting providers, reconnaissance on target organizations, research into vulnerabilities, payload development, and assistance with malicious scripting and evasion techniques,” says Google.
The start of this week saw roughly $1 trillion wiped off leading US tech stocks, following the launch of Deepseek, a Chinese rival to AI offerings such as Microsoft ChatGPT. What has really spooked the markets is that the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) assistant uses less data and generates lower all-round costs than its current Silicon Valley rivals.
The expense of training and developing DeepSeek’s models is claimed to be only a small fraction of that required for OpenAI, putting into question the need to invest in the latest and most powerful AI accelerator chips from Nvidia. At the start of trading this week, Shares in Nvidia dropped a full10 percent and AI data analytics company Palantir lost seven percent in pre-market trading. Microsoft, Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Meta all also experienced a drop in their share price.
A man alleged to be behind the recent Salt Typhoon US telecoms network and US Treasury department breaches has been sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Yin Kecheng “has been a cyber actor for over a decade and is affiliated with the People’s Republic of China Ministry of State Security (MSS)”, says the Treasury Office. Yin is alleged to have had direct and associated involvement in both breaches.
Two key individuals in President Donald Trump’s new administration, Elon Musk, and the president’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, have specifically cited the two devastating breaches as the prime examples of why the nation’s cybersecurity strategy is in pressingly urgent need of being overhauled.
One of the greatest challenges now facing President Trump’s new administration is to protect the US’s critical infrastructure and its economy from the rapidly growing menace of cyber-attacks.
On Friday, the president’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, signalled a new direction for America’s main cybersecurity agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which, she says, urgently needs to be realigned away from focusing on misinformation and curtailing free speech and more towards preventing cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure in the US.
The US Justice Department and FBI have completed a law enforcement operation to delete Chinese malware from approximately 4,258 U.S.-based computers and networks. The international operation was led by French law enforcement and France-based private cybersecurity company Sekoia.io.
According to court documents unsealed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a group of hackers paid by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), known as “Mustang Panda” and “Twill Typhoon,” used a version of PlugX malware to infect, control, and steal information from victim computers. Since at least 2014, Mustang Panda hackers have infiltrated thousands of computer systems in campaigns targeting US victims, European and Asian governments and businesses, and Chinese dissident groups.
The latest US security breach attributed to systematic attempts by China to compromise US institutions and critical infrastructure has impacted the US Treasury. The intrusion is being billed as “a major cybersecurity incident”.
According to a letter from the US Department of the Treasury: “The threat actor was able to override the service’s security, remotely access certain Treasury Departmental Office user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users… Based on available indicators, the incident has been attributed to a China state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor.”
A Chinese national, Guan Tianfeng, has been accused of involvement in the hacking of 81,000 firewall devices all over the world in 2020. Some of the compromised devices were protecting systems running US critical infrastructure and, had the attacks gone undetected, they could have had potentially deadly consequences. The US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program has since announced a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest of Guan and his alleged co-conspirators.
“The defendant and his conspirators compromised tens of thousands of firewalls and then continued to hold at risk these devices, which protect computers in the United States and around the world,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew G. Olsen.
Vodka Manufacturing Group Stoli USA declares bankruptcy after a ransomware attack. In a filing on Nov 29, CEO Chris Caldwell states that the ransomware attack was one factor among several others that led them to the bankruptcy filing, including decades-long legal battles with the Russian government.
Authorities in Korea and Beijing dismantled a sprawling voice phishing syndicate responsible for financial losses totaling US$ 1.1 billion. But South-East Asian observers believe this to be only the tip of an impenetrable iceberg of cybercrime in South-East Asia that is rapidly starting spread around the globe.
The Korean bust was part of an Interpol-co-ordinated global operation involving law enforcement from 40 countries, territories, and regions and has ended with the arrest of over 5,500 financial crime suspects and the seizure of more than US$400 million in virtual assets and government-backed currencies.
US Senator Mark Warner has called the Salt Typhoon hack, conducted by a group that has been linked to Chinese intelligence, “the most serious telecoms hack in our history.” In a recent interview with the NY Times, Warner also said that hackers were able to listen in on telephone calls and access text messages, emphasizing that “every major provider has been broken into.”
This follows hard on the FBI releasing a joint statement with the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in which they announced that “China-affiliated actors have compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies.”
The USA’s drinking water is under threat. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 97 drinking water systems serving around 27 million users have critical or high-risk cybersecurity.
Although the EPA’s latest report focuses on the potential financial costs of cyber-attacks, there is also strong evidence that such attacks could also result in significant loss of life, with thousands or even millions of people being deliberately poisoned by terrorists or a hostile foreign power.
“We estimate that a [California] state-wide water service disruption could potentially cost at least $61 billion in lost revenue per day,” says the EPA report, Cybersecurity Concerns Related to Drinking Water Systems.
Research conducted by Which, the consumer watchdog magazine, has confirmed something the smartphone industry has known for years: Chinese electronic products are routinely used to spy on citizens in countries like the US and the UK.
The latest suspects, domestic air fryers, join a long list of products the Chinese are accused of having used to spy on the West, which already ranges from smart watches to automobiles. Which analyzed three air fryers sold in the UK and found that Aigostar, Xiaomi Mi Smart, and Cosori CAF-LI401S knew their customers’ precise locations and demanded permission to listen in on users’ conversations. The Aigostar air fryer even wanted to know the user’s gender and date of birth when setting up an account. Disturbingly, both the Aigostar and Xiaomi air fryers are reported to have sent personal data to servers in China.
This week, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced criminal charges against a Chinese national, Song Wu, accused of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in an effort to obtain National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) computer software and source code.
The DOJ has now revealed that the specialized software allegedly stolen by Song could be used by potentially hostile enemies to attack the US. According to the DOJ, the stolen software could be used for “industrial and military applications, such as development of advanced tactical missiles and aerodynamic design and assessment of weapons.”
Nations hostile to America, primarily Russia and China, are currently doubling down on their efforts to influence the outcome of the upcoming US elections. So far, their efforts appear to be directed at preventing Donald Trump from winning a second term as president, possibly fearing a Republican victory could herald the US taking a tougher stance on international affairs.
According to an extensive nine-page Microsoft threat intelligence report: “Foreign malign influence concerning the 2024 US election started off slowly but has steadily picked up pace over the last six months due initially to Russian operations, but more recently from Iranian activity.”
Recent reports that ransomware attacks on industrial organizations increased by over 50 percent in 2023 represent only “the tip of the iceberg.” According to operational technology (OT) cybersecurity company IXDen, critical infrastructure across the US is being attacked at unprecedented levels.
“The vast majority of cyber breaches of critical infrastructure such as water and power facilities go unreported, although a precise figure is impossible to gauge. Those that are reported in the media are only the tip of the iceberg. OT attacks on private businesses are not reported at all, and in public organizations, they are rarely reported,” says IXDen CEO and Co-Founder Zion Harel.
The US Congress has introduced a new act to prevent the Chinese and “other foreign entities of concern” from infiltrating the US’s domestic chipmaking industry.
The bill, the Chip Equipment Quality, Usefulness, and Integrity Protection Act of 2024 (Chip EQUIP Act), follows on from the CHIPS and Science Act, enacted in 2022, which earmarked roughly $280 billion in new funding to boost US domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors. It included $39 billion in subsidies plus tax breaks for US chipmakers. However, China has recently matched this with a new $40 billion investment in its own semiconductor industry, which will heavily focus on chip manufacturing equipment. In April, Chinese tech giant Huawei announced investing in new R&D capabilities to rival US, Japanese, and Dutch firms.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has laid the blame for escalating worldwide ransomware attacks squarely at Russia’s door.
Speaking at the 2024 Boston Conference on Cyber Security last week, FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran said: “Almost all of the criminals developing sophisticated malware to enable ransomware attacks are based in Russian-speaking countries and operate as organized crime syndicates, similar to traditional organized crime elements.”
He focused on the FBI’s earlier this year disruption of Dark Web ransomware gang LockBit, stressing that organized cybercriminal gangs, particularly Russian ones, are essentially the same as old-school mafia mobsters. They differ only in their methods and avenues of attack.
The ‘ShinyHunters’ threat actor group posted data from a Ticketmaster data breach, potentially belonging to 560M users, asking for $500K in exchange for the data.
Analysts at Vx-Underground analyzed a sample of the Ticketmaster data and determined that the data was authentic, containing entries dating back to 2011.
Mandiant revealed that Chinese-linked state-backed hackers rely on operational relay box (ORBs) network proxy meshes to avoid detection for cyber espionage campaigns.
For example, Mandiant pointed out that these advanced persistent threat actors (APTs) used ORBs for the ‘SPACEHOP’ critical vulnerability campaign earlier this year.
“Critical flaws” have been identified in modems deployed in millions of devices worldwide. Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has issued a report warning companies of severe security vulnerabilities in Cinterion cellular modems.
According to Kaspersky, Cinterion modems are cornerstone components in machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) communications and now offer a back door for all kinds of threat actors. They support various applications, ranging from industrial automation and vehicle telematics to smart metering and healthcare monitoring. Gemalto, the initial developer of the modems, was subsequently acquired by Thales. In 2023, Telit acquired Thales’ cellular IoT products business, including the Cinterion modems.
By operating a “fraud-as-a-service’ (FaaS) website, BogusBazarr, operating out of China, runs 200 fraudulent webshops and has so far claimed 850,000 victims, mostly from the US and Western Europe.
Victims who access BogusBazarr shops are offered amazing-sounding deals on shoes and apparel from well-known brands. But as the webshops are totally fraudulent, the victims end up having their credit card details stolen with nothing to show for it.
UK-based Shared Services Connected Limited (SSCL) has been named as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) contractor hacked by, according to senior government sources, China.
British defense minister Grant Shapps has admitted that the personal and financial details of 272,000 service personnel were hacked by “a malign actor.” However, the breach is now being widely attributed to China, despite China’s dismissal of the allegations as “absurd”. But while the compromised payment system has now been taken offline, there are growing fears that the breach may not merely be confined to the MoD, as SSCL handle a number of UK government contracts.
“We’re the largest provider of critical business support services for the Government, the UK Military & Veterans (MoD), Metropolitan Police Service, and the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB),” boasts SSCL on its website.
A new bamboo curtain has fallen across China, with a reported blanket ban on US chips. The move is bad news for long-time Silicon Valley tech giant chipmaker Intel, whose Chinese sales accounted for roughly a quarter of its global revenues.
Big names join Semiconductor ban
But China’s retaliatory move may not only be bad news for US chip makers such as Intel and AMD but also for China’s own communications infrastructure. The order from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology includes big players China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicorn, together with other Chinese operators. All are now obliged to submit draft deadlines for the replacement of foreign microchips. It is uncertain to what extent the CCP actually believes that Intel and AMD chips are likely to have built-in spyware or anything of the sort. The ban can be seen as part of a broader strategy on the part of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to end its country’s long-term reliance on US technology.
Once again, China is harnessing new Western technology to attack and undermine the US at home and overseas. According to a new report from Microsoft, this time, China is using AI-generated fake social media accounts to influence the outcome of the upcoming US presidential elections.
The report, Same targets, new playbooks: East Asia threat actors employ unique methods, details China’s recent attempts to discredit the US government, including misinformation regarding: the Kentucky train derailment in November; the Maui wildfires in August; the disposal of Japanese nuclear wastewater, illegal drug use in the US as well as exacerbating the increasing racial tensions across the US.
Arriving just a month after a paid ransom was demanded following the massive data breach in February 2024, Change Healthcare reported on another potential cyberattack: extortion from the “ransomhub” group.
Initiated by the new “ransomhub” group, with suspected connections to BlackCat, the double-extortion claim has yet to be confirmed by cybersecurity experts.
Visa released an alert on the ‘JsOutProx’ remote access trojan (RAT) malware phishing campaign which targets financial institutions and customers.
The JSOutProx malware linked to the ‘Solar Spider’ threat actor delivers a RAT that could steal sensitive data, establish a C2 connection, and extract Outlook information, among others.
Following the US-led sanctions on Chinese individuals behind the Chinese APT31 group, the Police of Finland formally accused the group of hacking Finland’s parliament in 2020.
The country’s law enforcement confirmed the connections between the breach and the Chinese group, claiming to have identified one specific suspect.
The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against seven Chinese nationals based in Wuhan, China, for their affiliation with the ‘APT31’ hacking group.
According to OFAC, APT31 is a nation-state-backed Chinese hacking group focused on infiltrating critical infrastructure in Eastern Europe, France, and the US.
The UK’s Deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, is expected to formally announce to the press that China is behind a wave of cyber attacks against UK government officials and will urge the protection of voters’ data.
Despite the denial from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UK government remains on high alert for politically fueled cyber attacks as the election period nears.
In what is being seen by some on the Hill as a case of too little too late, Washington has this week finally blocked the sale of US citizens’ personal sensitive data to four hostile foreign powers: North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran.
Sensitive data includes ordinary people’s social security numbers, financial account numbers, biometric information, genetic information, precise geolocation information, and most of their private communications. Washington’s Energy and Commerce Committee top Democrat, Congressman Frank Pallone Jr, simultaneously issued a statement highlighting the massive threat foreign data sales present to ordinary people.
The White House has issued an urgent appeal to all US state governors to prepare to cope with their water systems being attacked and taken down by Chinese cyber-attacks. Iran, which has honed its industrial espionage techniques via consistent attacks on Israel’s infrastructure, is also proving effective in taking down water facilities in the US.
The letter from the White House contains a stark warning that attacks on US water facilities are no longer a potential threat but an increasingly frequent event with real-world consequences. It was signed by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Jake Sullivan, and by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael S. Regan.
US President Joe Biden has dealt a potentially devastating blow to China’s tottering economy by accusing China’s auto industry of posing a serious cyber risk to US national security. An impassioned speech from the President concerning the cyber threat posed by China comes only weeks after a similar warning from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concerning China’s plans to launch a cyber-attack on US national infrastructure.
“China is determined to dominate the future of the auto market, including by using unfair practices. China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security. I’m not going to let that happen on my watch,” promises the President.
US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Christopher Wray used his keynote speech at the weekend’s Munich Cyber Security Conference, which many regard as the security version of Davos, to effectively declare cyber-war on the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
“Our adversaries have been improving exponentially,” warns Wray. “Chief among those adversaries is the Chinese government…the cyber threat posed by the Chinese government is massive.”
Wray added that China’s hacking program is larger than that of all the other major world nations combined and that the PRC is using AI technology stolen from the Western powers to vastly increase the present threat. The FBI director told the major world powers assembled in Munich at the weekend that a new enhanced level of cooperation between government agencies such as his and the private sector is the only way to counter this new Red Menace.
The Mozilla Foundation released research that unveils that all 11 romantic AI chatbots tested, failed security and privacy tests.
All 11 chatbots feature data privacy concerns, pulling much more data than is needed from the collective 100 million users of these chatbots. Mozilla urges these chatbots to minimize exploiting vulnerable users through more transparent data privacy practices.
Editorial Team
