China’s Cyber ​​Security Threat Is Constantly Evolving: CISA

China is the most active and persistent cyber threat to US critical infrastructure, but that threat has changed over the past two decades, according to the Cyber ​​Security and Infrastructure Agency (CISA).

“I don’t think it’s possible to design a foolproof system, but I don’t think that should be the goal. The goal should be to make it very difficult to break into,” Cris Thomas, sometimes known as Space Rogue , member of L0pht Heavy Industries, said during testimony before the Committee on Governmental Affairs on May 19, 1998.

L0pht Heavy Industries was part of one of the first congressional hearings cyber security threats. Group members warned that it was possible to disable the Internet in 30 minutes and that it was almost impossible to make a defense system that was 100% foolproof. It also had difficulty tracking where the threats were coming from.

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“Backtracking and reverse hacking is a relatively complicated area. Based on the relatively old protocols you’re dealing with, there’s not a huge amount of information about where things came from, just that they came from,” said another member of the group. , Peiter Zatko, who testified under his code name, “Mudge.”

By the time the hearing was held, China was probably already at work. In the early 2000s, the US government became aware of Chinese espionage targeting government entities. A series of operations known as Titan Rain began in 2003 and involved hackers in the US State Departments, National Security and Energy The public learned about the attacks several years later.

At the time, the current director of CISA, Jen Easterly, was sent to Iraq to investigate how terrorists were using the new technology.

“I actually started out in the world of counter-terrorism and I was sent to Iraq and saw how terrorists used communications technology for recruitment and radicalization and set off improvised explosive devices,” Easterly said.

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At the time, the US government was investing in cyber warfare. The Bush administration had ordered studies of computer network attacks, but officials eventually expressed concern about the amount of damage such attacks could cause. Instead, the US shifted to a more defensive posture that focused on defending against attacks.

“When I was in the Army’s first cyber battalion and I was involved in the rise of US Cyber ​​Command, we were very focused on nation-state adversaries,” Easterly said. “At the time, China was really an espionage threat that we focused on.”

China’s threats would intensify. According to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Cyber ​​Operations Monitor, in the early 2000s, China’s cyber campaigns focused primarily on spying on government agencies.

“Officials have called China’s aggressive and extensive spying the main threat US technology,” Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., warned in 2007.

At the time, China had a history of spying on American innovation and using it to replicate its own infrastructure. In 2009, Chinese hackers were suspected of stealing information from Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter program. Over the years, China has debuted fighter jets that look and operate like US jets.

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“China is the pre-eminent threat to the US,” Easterly said. “We are laser-focused on doing everything we can to identify Chinese activity, eradicate it, and ensure we can defend our critical infrastructure from Chinese cyber actors.”

In 2010, China shifted its targets to the public sector and began targeting telecommunications companies. Operation Aurora was a series of cyberattacks in which actors conducted phishing campaigns and compromised the networks of companies such as Yahoo, Morgan Stanley, Google and dozens more. Google left China after the hacks and has yet to return its operations to the country. At the start of a new decade, evidence showed that China was also spying on critical infrastructure in the US and abroad.

“Now we’re seeing them as a threat to do disruptive and destructive operations here in the U.S. That’s really a development that, frankly, I wasn’t tracking and I was surprised when we saw this campaign,” Easterly said.

The Council on Foreign Relations’ Cyber ​​Operations Tracker reveals that China has frequently focused on commercial operations and military operations in the South China Sea, and one of its favorite targets over the past decade has been Taiwan.

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“We’ve seen these actors dig deep into our critical infrastructure,” Easterly said. “It’s not for espionage, it’s not for data theft. It’s specifically so they can launch disruptive or destructive attacks in the event of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait.”

Taiwan is the world’s largest producer of semiconductors, and the data shows how China has spied on every company involved in every part of that supply chain, from mining to semiconductor producers.

“A war in Asia could have very real impacts on the lives of Americans. You could see exploding pipes, derailing trains, polluted water. It’s really part of China’s plan to ensure that they can inciting social panic and deterring our capacity for military power and public will. This is the most serious threat I have seen in my career,” Easterly said.

China’s public and private sector they are closely intertwined by regulation, unlike in the US, where partnerships are key to advocacy.

“At the end of the day, it’s a team sport. We work very closely with our intelligence community and our military partners at U.S. Cyber ​​Command. And we have to work together to make sure we’re leveraging all the tools of the US government, and of course working with our private sector partners,” Easterly said.

“They own the vast majority of our critical infrastructure. They’re on the front lines. And so making sure we have a very strong operational partnership with the private sector is critical to our success in ensure the safety and security of cyberspace.”