How Many ‘Wake-Up Calls’ Will it Take for US to Counter China Cyberattacks?

EXPERT INTERVIEW — The U.S. Treasury Department closed 2024 with the announcement that state-sponsored hackers from China had breached its systems in a “major incident.” The hackers compromised a third-party cybersecurity provider to access networks of the Office of the Treasury Secretary and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) — the department entity that deals with economic sanctions. Treasury said the hackers accessed unclassified documents.

The hack is the latest in a series of sobering reminders of the cyber threat emanating from China – a threat manifested most profoundly in the so-called “Volt Typhoon” and “Salt Typhoon” attacks, which in the last two years have breached U.S. critical infrastructure and exposed vulnerabilities in areas from the water supply to the electric grid to telecommunications. In the case of the Salt Typhoon attacks, the breach compromised major U.S. telecommunications companies and went unnoticed until Microsoft alerted the government.