(NewsNation) — A new report claims China has been initiating more cyber attacks and has a greater plan to cripple the U.S. through hacking.
The report from the Washington Post reveals alleged state-sponsored Chinese hackers may have breached more than two dozen systems over the past year alone.
Experts believe this could be part of the country’s long game to distract, or worse, infect American commerce and infrastructure if a conflict erupts over Taiwan.
The hackers are allegedly targeting critical infrastructure such as water utility in Hawaii, a port on the West Coast and some oil and gas pipelines, the report said.
Chinese hackers have even been accused of trying to bust into the Texas power grid over the past summer, according to the Washington Post.
American cyber security officials believe some of this activity is part of a state-sponsored Chinese operation called Volt Typhoon. An advisory went out about this back in May.
Microsoft even posted that it found evidence of Volt Typhoon in Guam, which is the closest U.S. territory to Taiwan.
What the hackers are trying to do is get into these systems without being noticed and wait for vulnerable moments, watching and gathering information. Then, when the moment is right, the hackers attack the U.S. systems with ransomware.
The Washington Post reported that experts believe it could even coincide with airstrikes or missile launches with the intent to slow down and cripple the U.S. response to conflict overseas.
But it’s important to understand that the idea that China has been trying to hack U.S. infrastructure isn’t new. The challenge now is how the U.S. can catch up.
“We are way behind the curve in terms of hacking and cyber security. We have always been chasing China since the beginning and part of it isn’t our fault. We were very preoccupied with Sept. 11 and while we were preoccupied with that, China was growing this hacking cadre,” NewsNation national security contributor Tracy Walder said.
NewsNation reached out to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency but did not hear back.
The latest advisory on this issue went out back in May and offered several mitigations for businesses to beef up their cyber security efforts.