The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency released a stark warning about the possibility of Chinese hackers launching destructive attacks on US infrastructure if tensions escalate.
China launching these types of harmful attacks would come in contrast to their usual cyber activities, which are rarely destructive in nature and mostly focused on espionage and data theft.
“(China) almost certainly would consider undertaking aggressive cyber operations against U.S. homeland critical infrastructure and military assets worldwide,” the last Annual Threat Assessment report stated in February.
The report highlights that if China wanted to, they could pose a serious risk to our rail systems and our oil and gas pipelines. That said, the report highlights that it only believes China will act if US conflict was unavoidable and imminent.
Since February tensions with China have been steadily rising, including China shooting down a multi-billion dollar deal with Intel by refusing to approve the deal. While the reasons for the aggression are multi-faceted, officials are warning that the signs are pointing to a cyber attack from China.
“I hope that people are taking seriously a pretty stark warning about the potential for China to use their very formidable capabilities in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan straits to go after our critical infrastructure,” states Jan Easterly, director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency.
“Time is not our friend in this quest. We need to move very, very quickly. That’s why we’ve moved so quickly and so have our industry partners,” Pekoske said. “We need to be ready now,” The director of the US Transportation Security Administration declared at the same panel.
Chinese officials responded to reports of state-sponsored hacking, denying the claims and instead referring to it as a “collective disinformation campaign” by the US and its allies.
These officials replied by calling the US “the champion of hacking,” and reported that they were more often than not the victims of advanced cyber attacks.