Cyber attacks against key US infrastructure continue, but this time its China

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Attacks are being carried out as practice in the event of war

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Following a suspected recent Iranian cyberattack against a US water treatment facility, government officials are now alleging that the Chinese military has been targeting a number of water and power installations across the country.

Transportation systems are among the apparent targets, with the assaults supposedly being carried out to develop a broader attack playbook that could be deployed if war were to break out between the US and China.

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The attacks are being carried out by groups affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army, and the groups have infiltrated twenty to thirty sites across the country. according to unnamed officials who spoke to the Washington Post.

Among the targets were water infrastructure in Hawaii, the operator of the Texas power grid, a port on the West Coast, and at least one oil and gas pipeline. While attacks against these sites are serious, apparently no critical control systems were breached.

The group behind many of the attacks, Volt Typhoon, has links to China’s People's Liberation Army and employs a wide range of sophisticated tactics such as 'living off the land techniques', which uses built-in network administration tools to perform attacks.

The group has been referenced in a number of attack reports released by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), as well as being named in warnings released by Microsoft researchers and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Brandon Wales, the executive director of CISA, said, “It is very clear that Chinese attempts to compromise critical infrastructure are in part to pre-position themselves to be able to disrupt or destroy that critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict, to either prevent the United States from being able to project power into Asia or to cause societal chaos inside the United States — to affect our decision-making around a crisis.

“That is a significant change from Chinese cyber activity from seven to 10 years ago that was focused primarily on political and economic espionage.”

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Benedict Collins
Benedict Collins
Senior Writer, Security

Benedict is a Senior Security Writer at TechRadar Pro, where he has specialized in covering the intersection of geopolitics, cyber-warfare, and business security.

Benedict provides detailed analysis on state-sponsored threat actors, APT groups, and the protection of critical national infrastructure, with his reporting bridging the gap between technical threat intelligence and B2B security strategy.

Benedict holds an MA (Distinction) in Security, Intelligence, and Diplomacy from the University of Buckingham Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS), with his specialization providing him with a robust academic framework for deconstructing complex international conflicts and intelligence operations, and the ability to translate intricate security data into actionable insights.