National Security Council official Israel Soong said the Chinese regime was able to ‘persistently and aggressively maintain this cyber access for years on end.’
Hackers in communist China maintained persistent access to U.S. and allied systems for multiple years, a Biden administration official has said.
The cyber campaign appears to be part of a wider effort by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to prepare attacks on critical infrastructure, according to Israel Soong, director for East Asia and Pacific cyber policy at the National Security Council.
In the event of a conflict, China intended to use its cyber access to “cripple” critical systems, including power grids and communications platforms, Mr. Soong said during a July 16 speech at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.
Mr. Soong’s comments appeared to reference a malicious cyber campaign that was acknowledged by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in February. A CISA statement at the time said that CCP-backed hackers were “seeking to pre-position themselves on IT networks for disruptive or destructive cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure.”
Intelligence leaders told Congress in February that the intrusion was detected in December 2023 and malware was removed from 600 government systems; however, the threat persisted in many infrastructure systems that are run by private companies.
Mr. Soong said many didn’t know that similar efforts had targeted numerous nations around the globe.
“What is public but is less well known is that the PRC has been doing the same propositioning to many other countries around the globe, including some who are our allies,” Mr. Soong said, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
The Chinese regime could “persistently and aggressively maintain this cyber access for years on end,” he said.
The CCP invested heavily in cyber capabilities because it had developed a national strategy to “actively and intentionally dominate these areas in a strategic way,” Mr. Soong said.
“Beijing sees cyber and emerging technology as critical to the strategy to reshape the United States-led international order to be more favorable to the priorities of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.
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