The American authorities announced this Wednesday that they had neutralized a network of cyber pirates called Volt Typhoon, targeting, according to Washington, the country's civil infrastructure on behalf of China.
The director of the American Federal Police (FBI), Christopher Wray, reported, during a hearing before a committee of the House of Representatives on strategic rivalry with China, this operation announced simultaneously by the Department of Justice .
In May 2023, the United States and its Western allies accused Volt Typhoon, described as a “cyber actor” sponsored by China, of having infiltrated American “critical infrastructure”, accusations rejected by Beijing.
“Just this morning, we announced an operation during which we and our partners identified hundreds of routers hacked by the group known as Volt Typhoon, sponsored by the People's Republic of China,” said the director of the FBI.
Beijing strongly condemned these allegations on Thursday.
“The United States has made baseless accusations and denigrated China without any evidence,” criticized a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, during a press briefing.
“The United States is the originator of cyberattacks and is experts in them,” the spokesperson accused in return.
“Cause chaos”
The malware used by this group “allowed China to hide, among other things, pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation activities against vital infrastructure like our communications, transportation and water sector,” continued Mr. Wray.
“Chinese cyberhackers are positioning themselves on American infrastructure to cause chaos and inflict real-world damage on American citizens and towns” in preparation for the moment when China would like to “strike” the United States, he said. warned.
Also read: Drinking water, electricity, army… A cyberattack worries the United States, which suspects Beijing
Access to this infrastructure “would have provided the People's Republic of China with leverage in a future crisis” with the United States, said Matthew Olsen, deputy justice minister in charge of the National Security Division, in a press release.
The operation was authorized by a federal court in Texas, in the southern United States, the Department of Justice said.
Taking control of these routers, vulnerable because they are at “end of life” and therefore no longer subject to operator updates, presented the hackers with the advantage of hiding the origin of future attacks from the China, according to the same source.