(USNewsBreak.com) – There’s a lot of tension in the world these days. Russia and Ukraine have been clashing since the former’s invasion two years ago. Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas in the contested Gaza Strip, and US troops have come under attacks in the Middle East. Now, FBI Director Christopher Wray is warning the world not to forget one more escalating threat: China.
Intelligence Officials Gather
Over the weekend of February 16 to 18, several heads of state and government officials from around the world gathered in Germany at the 60th annual Munich Security Conference. The event promotes “peace through dialog” to discuss international security challenges. Attendees found plenty of topics to confront over the three-day event, prefaced by a cyber security event. Director Wray spoke out about several concerns, noting that the situation in Ukraine and the Middle East might be taking up the most bandwidth, but he also wanted to address another real threat: China.
Wray’s Warning
According to The Wall Street Journal, Wray spoke on Sunday and addressed China’s penchant for disrupting critical infrastructure networks, saying it’s at “a scale greater than we’d seen before.” He warned that the activity they observed was just “the tip of the iceberg” and only “one of many such efforts” Beijing has perpetrated. When pressed about what other types of infrastructure China was reportedly targeting, Wray remained mum, saying that the FBI has “a lot of work underway.”
Wray also cited the incident involving a Chinese hacking group. On January 31, the Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs issued a press release announcing the disruption of “a botnet of hundreds of U.S.-based small office/home office (SOHO) routers” that Chinese hackers had “hijacked.” The group of hackers, known as Volt Typhoon, also targeted “critical infrastructure organizations in the United and elsewhere,” resulting in several security agencies sending out an advisory.
The DOJ disrupted the botnet, but that’s nowhere near the end of the crisis, according to Wray. He’s urging European and Asian countries to increase their resources to fight off Beijing’s unwanted intrusions.
Intelligence Officials Gather
As part of Wray’s mission, he has met with his counterparts globally, including a meeting with the Five Eyes intelligence community in California. The community includes the US, New Zealand, the UK, Canada, and Australia. He’s also spoken with Indian and Malaysian authorities and described how Europe has worked more closely with the US to identify, anticipate, and disrupt cyber threats.
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