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FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday confided in the American public about a serious dual threat, citing a classic example of someone using their power and position to get attention.
His stunning warning about China’s ability to “wreak havoc” on U.S. infrastructure and directly harm Americans sheds new light on the ambitions of America’s new superpower adversary, already a problem. It helps provide context for the increasingly fragile relationship between the United States and China. 2024 Campaign.
And experts say Mr Wray’s bombshell assessment of the vulnerabilities of the systems that underpin daily life reflects the growing problem of the interconnected nature of new transport, power and energy networks, and that in the future He said this meant a cyber attack on a single node could paralyze the entire country.
“The clarity and intensity of Mr. Wray’s rhetoric about this threat, and how much more resources the Chinese Communist Party is putting into this threat compared to the United States,” said Rick Geddes, director of the Infrastructure Policy Program at Cornell University. He said he was surprised. He said that despite his harsh words, Wray may have underestimated the severity of the problem, which raises “a number of red flags regarding potential threats to critical infrastructure.”
The scenario laid out in Congressional testimony by the FBI director is a shocking demonstration of the ability of China, its Communist Party leaders, and its sprawling intelligence agencies to target the American way of life with a hacking operation more extensive than any other country. It was a public accountant. Combined. There is a growing possibility that disputes over Taiwan and territorial claims in the South China Sea involving the United States could spread far beyond their epicenters on the other side of the world. And it is a sign of the ambition and aggressiveness of China, led by Xi Jinping, which perceives U.S. efforts to subjugate China to the existing U.S. rules-based system as an affront to its legitimate authority.
“The Chinese Communist Party’s dangerous actions and China’s multi-pronged attacks on national and economic security have made China a decisive threat for our generation,” Lei said. “There is far too little public attention to the fact that Chinese hackers are targeting our nation’s critical infrastructure, water treatment facilities, power grids, oil and gas pipelines, and transportation systems.”
These signs of a major Chinese cyberattack highlight the extreme tensions underlying recent efforts to stem the deterioration of U.S.-China relations, and the depth of the issues that threaten the relationship. At a summit in California in November, Mr. Xi and President Joe Biden agreed to try to avoid a flare-up in a U.S. election year. CNN exclusively reported this week that Xi promised Biden during the meeting that China would not interfere in the 2024 presidential election. High-level diplomatic contacts continued last week when National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bangkok.
Mr. Lei also used the hearing before the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party to question Mr. Xi’s promise that China would not interfere in elections. The issue of Biden’s response and potential cyberattacks comes as Republican candidates, particularly former President Donald Trump, have criticized Biden’s handling of the world’s most important foreign relations and promised a tough stance against Xi. is likely to become an issue in the election itself.
Mr. Wray’s appearance on Capitol Hill marked the committee’s most important moment yet. The creation of the committee was one of the major legacies from Kevin McCarthy’s short-lived tenure as Republican chairman. The challenge from an increasingly powerful China that is reshaping global geopolitics is one of the few policy areas on Capitol Hill where both parties share a common vision of threats and issues and want to take action. It is.
The committee’s chairman, Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher (Wisconsin), said that China could use the technology for the sole purpose of destroying or disabling U.S. critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict over, for example, Taiwan. U.S. intelligence agencies have warned that they have discovered that critical U.S. infrastructure has been hacked. “This is the cyberspace equivalent of putting bombs on America’s bridges, water treatment plants, and power plants,” he said. “There is no economic benefit to these actions. There is no pure rationale for intelligence gathering. The only purpose is to prepare for the destruction of America’s infrastructure, which will inevitably lead to chaos, confusion, and potentially It will result in mass casualties.”
The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, called on the government to act to prevent “political, economic and social chaos” in the event of an attack. He emphasized the need to take steps to seek out and destroy the malware and malicious code that China attempts to inject into U.S. critical infrastructure, and to clarify how the United States will stop such actions. I mentioned it.
Wray warned that the purpose of these moves is to give China the ability to cause harm deep within American society. “If you look at where they are located in civilian infrastructure, you see that it’s not just that low-impact attacks could occur in the event of a conflict. Low-impact attacks against civilians are part of China’s plans. Department,” he said.
Before the hearing, Mr. Wray said the department and its partners had identified an operation by a state-sponsored Chinese hacker group known as Bolt Typhoon that used malware to infiltrate China’s telecommunications, energy transportation and water sectors. He announced that the attack had been stopped and called for the following: Congress will help prevent future violations of U.S. systems.
There was no immediate reaction from China to the hearing, but Beijing has in the past denied hacking into U.S. systems. Nor can we know the extent to which the United States itself has the ability to target critical Chinese systems that could provide some degree of deterrence.
However, Gen. Paul Nakasone, the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, told a House committee that the United States is “strategizing by using the full scope of our authority and the full range of our military power to counter the Chinese threat in cyberspace.” We are trying to maintain our competitive advantage.” Our ability to impose costs, deny benefits, and encourage restraint on the part of our adversaries. ”
Gallagher said at the beginning of the hearing that without constant vigilance and defensive action by the United States, China has the ability to “turn out the lights on ordinary Americans, shut down cities, and inflict great loss on American lives.” warned that it would be maintained.
This problem is further exacerbated by the interconnected nature of much of modern infrastructure.
Geddes said there is a “quiet infrastructure revolution” in the U.S. driven by small startups whose systems are being adopted across the country.
“The policy problem is that we don’t understand how to integrate different sectors of infrastructure that were independent before technological development. They can also be thought of as independent. Now. Now, they have become more interdependent on each other,” he said.
This effect could leave different networks vulnerable to a single attack, Geddes said. For example, the increased use of electric vehicles could mean that a successful hack of the electricity grid could bring down large parts of the transportation system, potentially having a devastating impact on daily life and the economy. there is.
Traffic lights are another example. Previously, these often operated on timers. That is, they were not interlocked. However, in modern systems, the signals are connected through a computer. “If that kind of technology were to suffer a cyberattack, all of the signals could be affected at once,” Geddes said.
This level of integration actually makes the country more vulnerable than it should be.
“One of the unintended consequences of this technological evolution is that it will become more integrated, but that also means that it will be somewhat less resilient, and the impact of a successful cyberattack will be greater. Deaf,” Guedes said.
This reality gives even greater power and scope to China’s already extensive hacking capabilities.
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