On October 14, the China National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center, the National Engineering Laboratory for Computer Virus Prevention Technology and 360 Digital Security Group jointly released a report, Volt Typhoon III: A Cyber Espionage and Disinformation Campaign Conducted by U.S. Government Agencies, to unveil the U.S.-staged so-called “Volt Typhoon” farce. This is the third strike China conducted in 2024 on the Washington-style play script of Catch Me if You Can.
Here is a brief overview of the incident: In May 2023, the cybersecurity authorities of the Five Eyes alliance countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) issued a warning, citing a report released by Microsoft on the same day. The report claimed that a hacking organization based in China codenamed “Volt Typhoon,” which had the backing of the Chinese Government, was attacking small commercial and home network devices in the United States for “cyber espionage activities.”
In name of “protecting national security,” on March 11, the Joe Biden administration unveiled its budget request for fiscal year 2025, which revealed that the federal government’s cybersecurity budget for civil administrative departments and agencies had reached a record $13 billion, a 10-percent increase from fiscal year 2024. At the same time, several American companies, including Microsoft, secured substantial cybersecurity service contracts from the federal government.
After more than a year of detailed investigation, on April 15 and July 8, the above-mentioned three Chinese institutions released the first and second reports, titled Volt Typhoon: A Conspiratorial Swindling Campaign Targeting U.S. Congress and Taxpayers Conducted by U.S. Intelligence Community and Volt Typhoon II: A Secret Disinformation Campaign Targeting U.S. Congress and Taxpayers Conducted by U.S. Government Agencies. These reports proved that the so-called “Volt Typhoon” is actually an international ransomware organization exploited by U.S. intelligence agencies and cybersecurity companies to frame China and promote the narrative of a China threat, thus securing congressional budget allocations and government contracts.
The third report published on October 14 detailed how the U.S. used its Marble toolkit to deliberately mislead attribution analysis by inserting strings in other languages such as Chinese, Russian, Korean, Persian and Arabic, to frame other countries. “This is clearly intended to mislead investigators and defame China, Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran and Arab countries,” the report reads. Some American tech giants, for greater political and economic gains, not only actively cooperate in spreading the false narrative of Chinese hacking attacks, but also assist the U.S. Government in implanting backdoors in network devices and products, becoming accomplices in U.S. cyber espionage activities.
It is noteworthy that since the release of the first report in April, U.S. federal government agencies and Microsoft have remained silent for an extended period, and mainstream American media have nearly ceased reporting on the so-called “Volt Typhoon.” According to the reports, several Chinese media outlets have reached out via letters or calls to the U.S. Government and the U.S. Embassy in China to inquire about their views on these reports but have received no response.
The U.S. is conducting large-scale global cyber surveillance and espionage, which is an open secret.
According to data from the National Security Agency (NSA), the U.S., leveraging its inherent technical advantages and geographic position in the development of the Internet, has maintained firm control over critical Internet choke points such as the Atlantic and Pacific undersea cables. The U.S. has established seven national-level full-spectrum surveillance stations and works closely with the UK’s National Cyber Security Center to analyze and extract data from these cables, enabling unfettered surveillance of global Internet users.
In 2022, China released the Investigation Report on the Cyberattack Against Northwestern Polytechnical University by the U.S. NSA. The report revealed that the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) had conducted tens of thousands of malicious cyberattacks on China’s domestic networks, controlled tens of thousands of network devices, and stolen over 140 GB of highly valuable data. The report provided evidence of the U.S. conducting cyberattacks and data theft against China’s information networks, involving 13 individuals directly launching cyberattacks from within the U.S. and over 60 contracts signed between the NSA’s front companies and American telecommunications operators to create a cyberattack environment.
China will firmly defend its interests without budging an inch. China’s goal seems to go beyond merely proving its innocence; it aims to leverage its growing countermeasures to showcase the various methods the U.S. employs in its cyberattacks. –The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
