{"id":14948,"date":"2024-02-01T00:47:02","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T00:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/01\/chinese-cyber-attacks-are-intended-to-induce-societal-panic-across-america-security-directors-tell-congress\/"},"modified":"2024-02-01T00:47:02","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T00:47:02","slug":"chinese-cyber-attacks-are-intended-to-induce-societal-panic-across-america-security-directors-tell-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/01\/chinese-cyber-attacks-are-intended-to-induce-societal-panic-across-america-security-directors-tell-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese cyber attacks are intended to \u2018induce societal panic\u2019 across America, security directors tell Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"
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China\u2019s strategic plan to infiltrate the U.S. cyber infrastructure includes attempts to induce panic and unsettle everyday American life, a witness testified to Congress on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that ransomware attacks on U.S. businesses or critical systems are intended to \u2018induce societal panic.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018It is Chinese military doctrine to attempt to induce societal panic in their adversary. And arguably, the Chinese government got a little bit of a taste of this in the aftermath of the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline in May of 2021 that shut down gas to the Eastern seaboard for several days,\u2019 she said, noting Americans \u2018couldn\u2019t get to work. They couldn\u2019t take their kids to school, get folks to the hospital. It caused a bit of panic.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Now imagine that on a massive scale. Imagine not one pipeline, but many pipelines disrupted and telecommunications going down so people can\u2019t use their cell phone. People start getting sick from polluted water. Trains get derailed. Air traffic control system, port control systems are malfunctioning,\u2019 Easterly continued. \u2018This is truly an everything, everywhere all at once scenario.\u2019<\/p>\n

Easterly was one of four witnesses at \u2018The CCP Cyber Threat to the American Homeland and National Security\u2019 hearing, joining General Paul Nakasone, Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command; FBI Director Christopher Wray; and Harry Coker, Jr., director of the White House\u2019s Office of the National Cyber Director.<\/p>\n

During the same hearing, the FBI director echoed these sentiments, saying there is much more Congress and the rest of the federal government need to do to ensure Americans are safe from potential cyber threats posed by the Chinese government.<\/p>\n

Wray also announced that his bureau effectively eliminated a Chinese malware attack on small businesses located in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u2018Just this morning, we [the FBI] announced an operation where we and our partners identified hundreds of routers that had been taken over by the PRC state-sponsored hacking group known as Volt Typhoon. The Volt Typhoon malware enabled China to hide, among other things, pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation against critical infrastructure like our communications, energy, transportation and water sectors,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

Wray specified that the hacking group intended to \u2018find and prepare to destroy or degrade the civilian critical infrastructure that keeps us safe and prosperous.\u2019<\/p>\n

He continued: \u2018And let\u2019s be clear, cyber threats to our critical infrastructure represent real-world threats to our physical safety. So working with our partners, the FBI shut down Volt Typhoon and the access that enabled this operation was an important step, but there\u2019s a whole lot more to do and we need your help to do it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Putting the cyber disparity between China and the U.S. into context, Wray said China, formally the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC), has a much larger cyber force that remains dedicated and funded to dominate the cyber realm. He said the U.S., even if it were to dedicate all of its cyber personnel to China, would still be outnumbered \u2018by at least 50-to-1.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018To quantify what we\u2019re up against, the PRC has a bigger hacking program than that of every major nation combined. In fact, if you took every one of the FBI\u2019s cyber agents and intelligence analysts and focused them exclusively heavily on the China threat, China\u2019s hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50-to-1,\u2019 the director said.<\/p>\n

Wray said any continued cyber defense should include the American public, noting only the government and the private sector could effectively protect against the potential Chinese threat.<\/p>\n

Gen. Nakasone also answered a question about how to protect from the potential threat, emphasizing the need to renew Section 702, a provision of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.<\/p>\n

\u2018Section 702 is the most important authority that the National Security Agency uses every single day to keep Americans safe and to secure our nation,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018As someone who was at the Pentagon on 9\/11 to consider that we would return to the days before Section 702 where we couldn\u2019t connect the dots is almost inexplicable to me,\u2019 Nakasone\u00a0 continued. \u2018The other piece that I would add to your question is [Section] 702 is so agile that it provides us an ability to see the Chinese chemicals that are being used to feed fentanyl, which is the scourge of our nation. More than 100,000 Americans lost their lives in 2022. [Section] 702 allows us to identify those precursor issues that saves lives.\u2019<\/p>\n

The general also described the surveillance authority enumerated in Section 702 as \u2018the most transparent, the effective, the most important authority.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018It balances civil liberties and privacy and the requirements of our national security,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China\u2019s strategic plan to infiltrate the U.S. cyber infrastructure includes attempts to induce panic and unsettle everyday American life, a witness testified to Congress on Wednesday. Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that ransomware attacks on U.S. businesses or critical <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}