US, Microsoft warn Chinese hackers attacking ‘critical’ infrastructure

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State-sponsored Chinese hackers have infiltrated critical U.S. infrastructure networks, the United States, its Western allies and Microsoft said Wednesday while warning that similar espionage attacks could be occurring globally...

Microsoft highlighted Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean with a vital military outpost, as one of the targets, but said "malicious" activity had also been detected elsewhere in the United States...

The stealthy attack - carried out by a China-sponsored actor dubbed "Volt Typhoon" since mid-2021 -- enabled long-term espionage and was likely aimed at hampering the United States if there was conflict in the region, it said.. "Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that this Volt Typhoon campaign is pursuing development of capabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises," the statement said.. (For top technology news of the day, subscribeto our tech newsletter Todays Cache)..

Microsoft said the Volt Typhoon attack tried to blend into normal network activity by routing traffic through compromised small office and home office network equipment, including routers, firewalls and VPN hardware...

A number of other governments had found similar activity since the Volt Typhoon alert was issued, said Robert Potter, co-founder of Australian cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0...

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