Tuesday, July 22, 2025
LBNN
  • Business
  • Markets
  • Politics
  • Crypto
  • Finance
  • Energy
  • Technology
  • Taxes
  • Creator Economy
  • Wealth Management
  • Documentaries
No Result
View All Result
LBNN

The NSA Seems Pretty Stressed About the Threat of Chinese Hackers in US Critical Infrastructure

Simon Osuji by Simon Osuji
November 11, 2023
in Artificial Intelligence
0
The NSA Seems Pretty Stressed About the Threat of Chinese Hackers in US Critical Infrastructure
0
SHARES
0
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


The United States National Security Agency is often tight-lipped about its work and intelligence. But at the Cyberwarcon security conference in Washington DC on Thursday, two members of the agency’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center had a “call to action” for the cybersecurity community: Beware the threat of Chinese government-backed hackers embedding in US critical infrastructure.

Alongside its “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance counterparts, the NSA has been warning since May that a Beijing-sponsored group known as Volt Typhoon has been targeting critical infrastructure networks, including power grids, as part of its activity.

Officials emphasized on Thursday that network administrators and security teams need to be on the lookout for suspicious activity in which hackers manipulate and misuse legitimate tools rather than malware—an approach known as “living off the land”—to carry out clandestine operations. They added that the Chinese government also develops novel intrusion techniques and malware, thanks to a substantial stockpile of zero-day vulnerabilities that hackers can weaponize and exploit. Beijing collects these bugs through its own research, as well as a law that requires vulnerability disclosure.

The People’s Republic of China “works to gain unauthorized access to systems and wait for the best time to exploit these networks,” Morgan Adamski, director of the NSA’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, said on Thursday. “The threat is extremely sophisticated and pervasive. It is not easy to find. It is pre-positioning with intent to quietly burrow into critical networks for the long haul. The fact that these actors are in critical infrastructure is unacceptable, and it is something that we are taking very seriously—something that we are concerned about.”

Microsoft’s Mark Parsons and Judy Ng gave an update on Volt Typhoon’s activity later in the day at Cyberwarcon. They noted that after seemingly becoming dormant in the spring and most of the summer, the group reappeared in August with improved operational security to make its activity more difficult to track. Volt Typhoon has continued attacking universities and US Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs—a type of victim the group particularly favors—but it has also been observed targeting additional US utility companies.

“We think Volt Typhoon is doing this for espionage-related activity, but in addition, we think there’s an element that they could use it for destruction or disruption in a time of need,” Microsoft’s Ng said on Thursday.

The NSA’s Adamski and Josh Zaritsky, chief operations officer of the Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, urged network defenders to manage and audit their system logs for anomalous activity and store logs such that they can’t be deleted by an attacker who gains system access and is looking to hide their tracks.

The two also emphasized best practices, like two-factor authentication and limiting users’ and admins’ system privileges to minimize the possibility that attackers can compromise and exploit accounts in the first place. And they emphasized that not only is it necessary to patch software vulnerabilities, it is crucial to then go back and check logs and records to make sure that there aren’t signs that the bug was exploited before it was patched.

“We are going to need internet service providers, cloud providers, endpoint companies, cybersecurity companies, device manufacturers, everybody in this fight together. And this is a fight for our US critical infrastructure,” Adamski said. “The products, the services that we rely on, everything that matters—that’s why this is important.”



Source link

Related posts

Why humans excel at recognizing objects from fragments while AI struggles

Why humans excel at recognizing objects from fragments while AI struggles

July 22, 2025
OpenAI and Oracle announce Stargate AI data centre deal

OpenAI and Oracle announce Stargate AI data centre deal

July 22, 2025
Previous Post

AI makes you worse at what you’re good at

Next Post

American Ambassador to Visit Goma Amidst Escalating Crisis, Promising Light at the End of Dark Times

Next Post
Africa: Major Breakthrough in President Ramaphosa Farm Robbery Case

American Ambassador to Visit Goma Amidst Escalating Crisis, Promising Light at the End of Dark Times

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECOMMENDED NEWS

Batelco signs MoU with Ericsson

Batelco signs MoU with Ericsson

2 years ago
Top 3 Cryptocurrencies to Watch This Weekend: Early June 2024

Top 3 Cryptocurrencies to Watch This Weekend: Early June 2024

1 year ago
Who tells satellites where to take pictures? Increasingly, it’ll be robots, Maxar says

Who tells satellites where to take pictures? Increasingly, it’ll be robots, Maxar says

9 months ago
JIT Trading and Distribution announces strategic expansions and new partnerships in the Egyptian market

JIT Trading and Distribution announces strategic expansions and new partnerships in the Egyptian market

5 months ago

POPULAR NEWS

  • Ghana to build three oil refineries, five petrochemical plants in energy sector overhaul

    Ghana to build three oil refineries, five petrochemical plants in energy sector overhaul

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • When Will SHIB Reach $1? Here’s What ChatGPT Says

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • The world’s top 10 most valuable car brands in 2025

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Top 10 African countries with the highest GDP per capita in 2025

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Tanzania’s natural gas sector goes global with Dubai deal

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 LBNN - All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Markets
  • Crypto
  • Economics
    • Manufacturing
    • Real Estate
    • Infrastructure
  • Finance
  • Energy
  • Creator Economy
  • Wealth Management
  • Taxes
  • Telecoms
  • Military & Defense
  • Careers
  • Technology
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Investigative journalism
  • Art & Culture
  • Documentaries
  • Quizzes
    • Enneagram quiz
  • Newsletters
    • LBNN Newsletter
    • Divergent Capitalist

© 2023 LBNN - All rights reserved.