“It’s a ticking time bomb,” a US parliamentary source told The New York Times. Since May, the United States has been trying to find malicious computer code placed, according to Washington, by China at the heart of networks controlling critical infrastructure for the American army. And this computer breach is deeper and more worrying than initially estimated, according to US military and intelligence officials interviewed by the daily.
The United States fears that hackers linked to Beijing have installed a computer program intended to be activated in the event of an armed conflict, for example around Taiwan, according to the newspaper. If the malicious code has not been detected in classified computer systems according to the same source, Washington is concerned that it will disrupt, once started, the electricity, drinking water and communication networks supplying US military bases, which could impede troop movements.
Sources cited by the New York Times also consider another theory: with an infrastructure disruption, the Chinese hope that American citizens are too focused on this internal problem to pay attention to a conflict outside their borders. In late May, US and allied cybersecurity agencies accused a Chinese-sponsored “cyber actor” of infiltrating US “critical infrastructure”, allegations strongly denied by Beijing.
After more than a year of work, US officials still don’t know the full extent of the breach, according to the New York Times. Western countries are increasingly worried about Beijing’s maneuvers in cyberspace. In mid-June, a subsidiary of Google had reported that a group of cyberattackers, visibly linked to the Chinese state, were responsible for a vast campaign of computer espionage targeting in particular government agencies of several countries representing a strategic interest for Beijing. .
The choice of targets was directly related to “high priority issues for China, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, including Taiwan”, noted Mandiant, cybersecurity specialist at Google.
