The FBI has said it dismantled the hacking operations of a Chinese state-sponsored group that had targeted critical US infrastructure, including the power grid and pipelines. FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers that the bureau executed a campaign to shut down the group known as "Volt Typhoon".
The group had gained access to data on US assets by compromising hundreds of older office routers, Mr Wray alleged. He said the hackers installed malware that allowed China to conceal pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation against critical infrastructure, including water treatment systems, transport networks, oil and gas pipelines, and telecommunications.
Speaking to the US congressional committee on US-China competition on Wednesday, Mr Wray said the activity showed Beijing was laying groundwork to cripple key systems in the event of a conflict. He warned that China's hacking programme was larger "than every other major nation combined" and that FBI cyber agents were outnumbered by their Chinese counterparts by 50 to one.
The chairman of the committee likened the cyber intrusion to "placing bombs on American bridges and power plants". The Chinese government has yet to respond to the latest accusations, but has previously denied state-sponsored cyber warfare and dismissed the committee's criticism, urging it to "discard their ideological bias and zero-sum Cold War mentality".
The Volt Typhoon group first came to light last May, when Microsoft warned that it had targeted government email accounts and other public assets.
