As a prime example of how to use one’s position and authority for public benefit, FBI Director Christopher Wray informed the American people on Wednesday of a serious double danger.
A new light is shone on the ambitions of America’s new superpower enemy by his startling warning that China can “wreak havoc” on US infrastructure and directly hurt Americans. This also helps put the already-present issue of fragile relations between Washington and Beijing in context, which is a factor in the 2024 campaign.
Experts have pointed to a rising concern in Wray’s bombshell assessment over the weaknesses of the systems that support daily life. This concern derives from the interconnectedness of modern transport, electricity, and energy networks, which might make the entire country vulnerable to a cyberattack on a single node in the future.
The “clarity and intensity of Wray’s statements regarding this threat and how much more resources the Chinese Communist Party is putting into this relative to the United States” astonished Cornell University’s Infrastructure Policy Programme head Rick Geddes. There are “a lot of warning signals regarding the potential threats to our critical infrastructure,” he added, and Wray may have downplayed the seriousness of the problem despite his strong words.
A shocking public accounting of China, its Communist Party (CCP) leaders, and sprawling intelligence agencies’ capacity to target America’s way of life with a hacking operation that is bigger than all other nations combined was painted by the FBI director in congressional testimony. This fact suggests that any dispute involving the United States and Taiwan or territorial claims in the South China Sea could have far-reaching consequences. The aggressive and ambitious Xi Jinping government sees the US attempts to force it to conform to its rules-based system as a challenge to its legitimate power.
“The defining threat of our generation is the CCP,” Wray declared, referring to China’s alarming actions and its multi-pronged assault on American national and economic security. “The fact that PRC hackers are targeting our critical infrastructure, water treatment plants, electrical grid, oil and natural gas pipelines, transportation systems, and so on has received far too little public attention.”
Efforts to stem the precipitous decline in US-China ties have been fraught with difficulty, and the prospect of a Chinese cyberattack of this scale highlights the depth of the problems plaguing the relationship. President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping reached an agreement at their November conference in California to steer clear of conflicts during the US election year. According to an exclusive revelation by AWN this week, Xi assured Biden that China will not meddle in the 2024 presidential race during their meeting. Jake Sullivan, national security advisor, met with Wang Yi, Chinese foreign minister, in Bangkok last week, continuing the high-level diplomatic interactions.
Wray further questioned Xi’s assurance that China would refrain from interfering in the election during the appearance before the House select committee on the Chinese Communist Party. As Republican contenders, notably former President Trump, criticise Biden’s management of the world’s most important diplomatic relationship and pledge a tougher stance with Xi, the question of possible cyberattacks and his response are likely to become issues in the election itself.
The shocking warning from Wray
The committee, established as a major legacy item from Kevin McCarthy’s brief tenure as Republican speaker, had its most momentous moment with Wray’s presentation on Capitol Hill. One of the few policy domains on Capitol Hill where the two parties have a shared understanding of a danger or issue and a wish to take action is the challenge posed by a more powerful China, which is altering global geopolitics.
Republican Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, who chairs the committee, issued a warning that US intelligence services had found evidence that China had compromised American critical infrastructure in order to disable or destroy it in the case of a confrontation involving Taiwan, for example. “This is the digital analogue of demolishing American water treatment plants, bridges, and power plants,” he remarked. “These efforts will not have any positive impact on the economy. There is no logic that is based solely on obtaining intelligence. The one and only goal is to be prepared to bomb American infrastructure, which might lead to widespread mayhem and death.
Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), the committee’s top Democrat, urged the federal government to take measures to avert “political, economic and social chaos” in the case of an attacker. He said that the United States needed to figure out how to prevent China from injecting malware and harmful code into vital US infrastructure and that it needed to find and remove such code.
According to Wray, China’s goal in taking these actions is to increase its influence within American society. Low blows aren’t merely a potential in the event of a conflict; low blows against civilians are part of China’s plan,” he stated, pointing out their positioning across civilian infrastructure.
Prior to the hearing, Wray made an announcement regarding the shutdown of an operation by a state-sponsored Chinese hacking group called Volt Typhoon. This operation dealt with malware that enabled China to access sectors such as communications, energy transport, and water. Wray urged Congress to assist in preventing future breaches of US systems.
Although the Chinese government has previously denied hacking into US systems, they did not respond immediately to the hearing. Additionally, it is impossible to determine the level of US capability to attack China’s critical systems, which could serve as a deterrent.
However, US Cyber Command commander Gen. Paul Nakasone informed the House committee that the United States aims to preserve its strategic advantage by “contesting the threats posed by the PRC in cyberspace by using the full scope of our authorities and the full spectrum of our capabilities to impose costs, deny benefits, and encourage restraint on the part of our adversary.”
A look at how linked systems drive up the price of disaster strikes
At the outset of the hearing, Gallagher made a dire warning that China would continue to have the ability to “turn off the lights for everyday Americans, shut down cities and cause massive loss of American lives” unless the United States remained vigilant and took defensive measures.
The interconnectedness of much contemporary infrastructure is making the problem worse.
Geddes claimed that the United States has experienced a “quiet infrastructure revolution” due to the widespread adoption of technology developed by tiny, startup businesses.
“The problem with the policy is that people don’t understand how it connects various parts of the infrastructure that were separate before technology helped them work together. He went on to say that they are now more reliant on one another.
According to Geddes, this makes it possible for multiple networks to be compromised by a single attack. A successful hack of the electrical grid, for instance, might bring a huge portion of the transportation system to a standstill, disrupting daily life and the economy, especially considering the growing number of electric vehicles on the road.
Another instance of this is traffic signals. They used to be run on a timer, which meant they weren’t always connected. On the other hand, computers link the signals in contemporary systems. “All signals could be affected at once” in the event of a cyberattack on such equipment, according to Geddes.
The nation is more at risk now than it would have been before this degree of integration.
A more deeply integrated system may be more vulnerable to cyberattacks because of this technical evolution, according to Geddes. “One of the unintended consequences of this technological evolution is to make that integration more profound,” he added.
This fact further strengthens and expands China’s already formidable cyber capability.
