FBI Reports Neutralization of 'China's Hacking Operation Targeting U.S. Critical Infrastructure'

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that it has neutralized a major hacking operation by the Chinese government that threatened critical infrastructure in the United States. Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, stated on Wednesday, September 19, that the agency obtained control over a network consisting of hundreds of thousands of hacked internet routers and other devices that state-sponsored hackers from China were using to threaten critical infrastructure both in the U.S. and abroad. According to U.S. officials, this botnet, which included 260,000 hacked devices worldwide, from North and South America to Australia, comprised webcams and routers, with about half of them located in the U.S. In his speech at the Aspen Cyber Summit in Washington, D.C., Wray emphasized that despite the success in disrupting the hacking operation, 'the Chinese government will continue to target your organizations and our critical infrastructure.' The Chinese Consul General in New York was 'expelled' from the U.S. Botnets are tools favored by both cybercriminals and state-sponsored hackers. According to FBI officials, this botnet targeted on Wednesday was 'an active threat.' Experts noted that the Chinese botnet had a range of capabilities, including the ability to conduct cyberattacks tailored to the devices it had compromised. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington responded to the announcement by calling the U.S. accusations 'baseless' and accused the U.S. government of conducting cyberattacks against China. This is the latest confrontation in the often tense relations between the United States and China in cyberspace. The U.S. government has long warned that another state-sponsored hacker group from China is lurking around U.S. transportation and communication networks, waiting to exploit this access to disrupt any U.S. response to a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan.