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DOD: CHINA'S ICS CYBER ONSLAUGHT AIMED AT GAINING KINETIC WARFARE ADVANTAGE

Escalating incursions into military base infrastructure, telecom networks,
utilities, and more signal that Beijing is laying the groundwork for mass
disruption.
Tara Seals
Managing Editor, News, Dark Reading
September 15, 2023
Source: TY Lim via Shutterstock
PDF


China's onslaught of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure is likely a
contingency move designed to gain a strategic advantage in the event of kinetic
warfare, according to the US Department of Defense (DoD).



The agency's 2023 Cyber Strategy released this week flagged an uptick in
state-sponsored cybercrime from the People's Republic of China (PRC),
specifically against sensitive targets that could have an effect on military
response, in order "to counter US conventional military power and degrade the
combat capability of the Joint Force."

The DoD alleged in the report that the PRC "poses a broad and pervasive
cyberespionage threat," surveilling individuals beyond its borders, stealing
technology secrets, and undermining military-industrial complex capabilities.
But the activity goes beyond run-of-the-mill intelligence-gathering, the agency
warned.

"This malicious cyber activity informs the PRC's preparations for war,"
according to the report. "In the event of conflict, the PRC likely intends to
launch destructive cyberattacks against the US Homeland in order to hinder
military mobilization, sow chaos, and divert attention and resources. It will
also likely seek to disrupt key networks which enable Joint Force power
projection in combat."




AN INCREASING CHINESE FOCUS ON MILITARY DEGRADATION

The idea that cyber activity could presage military action echoes assessments by
Microsoft and others, made earlier this year around the Volt Typhoon attacks.
The Beijing-supported advanced persistent threat (APT) made national headlines
in the US in May, June, and July with a series of compromises that targeted
telecom networks; power and water controls; US military bases at home and
abroad; and other infrastructure whose disruption would hamper real-world
military operations.



So far, those compromises have not affected the operational technology (OT) used
by the victims, but speaking at Black Hat USA in August, CISA Director Jen
Easterly warned that the Chinese government is likely getting itself into the
position to conduct disruptive attacks on American pipelines, railroads, and
other critical infrastructure if the US gets involved during a potential
invasion of Taiwan.

"This APT moves laterally into environments, gaining access to areas in which it
wouldn't traditionally reside," says Blake Benson, cyber lead at ABS Group
Consulting. "Additionally, this threat actor worked hard to cover their tracks
by meticulously dumping all extracted memory and artifacts, making it difficult
for security teams to pinpoint the level of infiltration."



There could be a sort of anti-halo effect at work too, given that
military-focused attacks are likely to cause collateral damage to bystander
businesses, according to John Gallagher, vice president of Viakoo Labs at
Viakoo.

"Virtually all exploits launched by nation-states 'leak' over to
non-nation-state threat actors," he warns. "That means organizations who depend
on IoT/OT systems will be direct targets at some point to the same threats being
launched against national critical infrastructure."


DEFENDING THE CYBERWARFARE SPACE

To combat the activity of Volt Typhoon and other threats to physical safety in
the critical infrastructure space, the DoD laid out a "whole-of-government"
effort in its report, designed to "increase resilience and make it more
difficult for adversaries to disrupt essential services."

Dovetailing with the 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy, the DoD said that it
will leverage "all legally available contractual mechanisms, resources, and
operational arrangements to improve the cybersecurity of US critical
infrastructure systems" and expand public-private partnerships. To that end, it
laid out several pages of hardening and readiness actions in its report.

An example of a simple way that the government can swing into preemptive action
is the move by CISA to offer free network security and vulnerability scanning to
water utilities (PDF) to help identify avenues of exploitation and protect them
against cyberattacks.

"In terms of national defense there has been a decades-long evolution in the
volume, velocity, and persistence of cyber threats, which is tied to both the
increased computational capabilities of IoT/OT and critical infrastructure, as
well as increased sophistication by nation-state threat actors," Gallagher
warns. "From Stuxnet through Volt Typhoon to the current war between Ukraine and
Russia (where both sides have exploited vulnerable IoT/OT systems for
battlefield advantage), this will continue for the foreseeable future."

He adds, "That's why it is critical to keep improving cyber defenses and (as
highlighted in the DoD Cyber Strategy highlights) disrupt adversaries' efforts."

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