By Eric Mack
The Biden White House made a stunning admission that Chinese hackers have the ability to cripple the American power grid and ports, and it is reportedly not just run-of-the-mill intrusions but increasingly sophisticated actors with unparalleled skills.
Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, had known about the Chinese hackers’ ability to knock out critical infrastructure for more than a year, sources told The Wall Street Journal.
In the fall of 2023 he had warned telecommunications and technology executives in a secret White House meeting, seeking Big Tech’s help in protecting American lives and infrastructure from hacks.
Since then there have been at least nine U.S. telecom companies hacked, according to deputy national security adviser for cybersecurity Anne Neuberger.
“We will never know regarding the scope and scale of this,” she told the Journal. “They were very careful about their techniques.”
The hacks have morphed from mere “keyboard warriors — once seen as the cyber equivalent of noisy, drunken burglars” to now be “soldiers” with “astonishing skill level and stealth,” according to the Journal.
“They’re going to take down our grid,” far-east expert Gordon Chang told Newsmax’s “Sunday Report.” “They’re going to take down everything we have. We are going to be like an 1850s country without the things that we’ve been accustomed to, that operate our country.”
Former Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity expert Brandon Wales warned that hacks are the “key battlefield in any future conflict” with China, he told the Journal.
It is the front-line of cyberwarfare, he added, “designed to ensure they prevail by keeping the U.S. from projecting power, and inducing chaos at home.”
“Cyberspace is a fiercely contested battlefield,” Jake Sullivan told the paper. “We have made considerable progress, but serious vulnerabilities remain in sectors where we don’t have mandatory cybersecurity requirements.”
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said the U.S. vulnerability is “breathtaking.”
“It’s shocking how exposed we are, and still are,” he added.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington’s spokesman Liu Pengyu blamed the U.S. for propaganda and warned the U.S. to stop its own hacking campaigns.
“Some in the U.S. seem to be enthusiastic about creating various types of ‘typhoons,'” Pengyu told the Journal. “The U.S. needs to stop its own cyberattacks against other countries and refrain from using cybersecurity to smear and slander China.”