How Much Chinese Cyber Sabotage Will Trump Tolerate?
Date
12/23/2024 2:05:56 AM
(MENAFN- Asia Times)
US President-elect Donald trump has named most of the members of his proposed cabinet. However, he's yet to reveal key appointees to America's powerful cyber warfare and intelligence institutions.
These include positions like national cyber director , director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and National Security Council cyber lead. These figures will be vital in securing America's cyber security at a crucial time.
We believe there are three flashpoints that could be particularly troublesome for the incoming administration:
how Trump will balance his economic and security priorities
how his administration can effectively deter Chinese digital disruption
how it will address the suspicions among some MAGA supporters of the powers of the intelligence“deep state.”
Intensifying Chinese cyber espionage
Chinese electronic surveillance and espionage activities against the US have reached an all-time high in terms of level of effort and, most importantly, effectiveness.
These espionage activities have been successfully targeting:
the key intellectual property that provides the US with an economic and national security advantage
the personal communications of senior US government and military officials, and
the personal data of tens of millions of Americans.
As has recently been reported , the Chinese government has exploited vulnerabilities in America's aging telecommunications infrastructure to target secret government systems.
Hackers from the group“Salt Typhoon” were able to access the personal communications of high-ranking officials (including Trump) and expose the identities of US intelligence targets and sources in the US and overseas.
Salt Typhoon also appears to have extracted US telecommunications companies' call data records. These detail the call history and associated phone numbers of all users of the network.
These sophisticated breaches follow years of brazen cyber operations to steal US intellectual property and state secrets concerning strategically significant technologies. These include artificial intelligence, next-generation aircraft, biotechnology and energy systems.
Indeed, researchers have found the majority of Chinese espionage activities against the US since 2000 have focused on stealing commercial technologies and information.
Alongside this, the US government believes Beijing is seeking to expand its ability to capture digital information on Americans.
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