FBI Director James B. Comey said that the Chinese government has access to US infrastructure and is “waiting for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow.” The Chinese Hacking Campaign Volt Typhoon has been able to get into a number of important American companies, such as those that deal with water, transportation, and other areas.
The director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, said, “China is working on ways to physically damage our critical infrastructure whenever it wants.” “Its plan is to land low blows against civilian infrastructure to try to cause panic,” he said.
According to him, they don’t know the exact goal, but it might be part of a bigger plan to keep the US from protecting Taiwan. Taiwan and China have had a lot of problems because China claims Taiwan as their land and Taiwan doesn’t agree with them.
A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Volt Typhoon had nothing to do with the Chinese government and was instead part of a criminal ransomware group.
Some people in the US have been using cyberattack origin-tracing as a way to target and blame China, saying the US is the victim when it’s really China that’s at fault, and making cybersecurity problems political.
According to Wray, the Chinese hackers hid their illegal activities by using botnets, which are groups of computers and websites that have been hacked. Several places have said that Volt Typhoon has reached them, and several businesses and government leaders have said that the hacker group is connected to China.
