FBI says Chinese hackers preparing to attack US infrastructure

Chinese government-linked hackers have burrowed into U.S. critical infrastructure and are waiting "for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow," FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Thursday.

An ongoing Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon has successfully gained access to numerous American companies in telecommunications, energy, water and other critical sectors, with 23 pipeline operators targeted, Wray said in a speech at Vanderbilt University.

China is developing the "ability to physically wreak havoc on our critical infrastructure at a time of its choosing," Wray said at the 2024 Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats. "Its plan is to land low blows against civilian infrastructure to try to induce panic."

Wray said it was difficult to determine the intent of this cyber pre-positioning which was aligned with China's broader intent to deter the U.S. from defending Taiwan.

See: colonial pipeline hack. Russia was very happy to have their hackers extort money from US businesses, while maintaining implausible deniability. But when the damage was serious enough to cause a critical infrastructure outage, the US government had a word with the Russian government, and suddenly the Russian government was less friendly to those particular hacking groups, which shut down and rebranded.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DarkSide_(hacker_group)

Do the Chinese have a foothold in US critical infrastructure networks? Very probably yes. Are they likely to use it to cause damage? Not unless US-China relations worsen considerably.