“While obviously, other nation states like Russia and Iran have designs on US critical infrastructure the sophistication and scale of the Chinese program dwarfs those [of the] other countries.”
Wales said China had two goals when it came to targeting US critical infrastructure assets.
‘The reality is that almost any critical infrastructure can be targeted.’
American cybersecurity expert Brandon Wales
“In some respects, they’re looking to disrupt our ability to project power,” he said. “So if we had to support allies in the Pacific, making that more difficult.”
Secondly, he accused Beijing of “targeting a wide range of infrastructure for the purposes of sowing societal chaos inside the United States to affect US decision-making at a time and place of their choosing”.
“So if we want to have the type of geopolitical latitude that we need to advance US security interests and those of our allies, we need to ensure that China is not successful,” he said.
Wales, who is regarded as one of the US’s top cyber policy experts, said that while criminal cyber gangs often targeted hospitals and other healthcare providers for ransomware attacks, Beijing was focused on assets such as oil and gas transportation nodes.
“But the reality is that almost any critical infrastructure can be targeted,” he said. “And we see targets in every single sector over the course of a year from both nation states and criminal organisations.”
Abigail Bradshaw, head of the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre, said there were “certainly similarities” between the threats faced by the US and Australia, adding that the agency had sought to raise the alarm about increased risks to Australian critical infrastructure assets from state and non-state actors.
US President Joe Biden recently issued an executive order to improve cybersecurity protections at American ports and announced an unprecedented investigation into potential security risks in the US automobile sector amid fears China could use smart cars to spy on American drivers, prompting calls for Australia to follow suit.
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Wales said cybersecurity had been an “afterthought” for too long and needed to be a priority for emerging technologies such as electric vehicles and associated charging infrastructure.
Noting that the vast majority of cranes used at US ports were made in China, he added that “we have seen targeting, including from China and others who have looked to exploit port operations to potentially cause disruption”.
“When you are relying upon untrustworthy technology manufactured by countries who we know are looking to do us harm, having that be in critical elements of our infrastructure poses additional risk,” he said.
The US would increasingly look to build its own cranes or import them from friendly nations such as Japan and South Korea rather than rely on China, he said.
China has repeatedly rejected US hacking allegations as baseless, claiming that China is the world’s biggest victim of cyberattacks.
US President Joe Biden has ordered that cybersecurity at the country’s ports be increased.Credit: AP
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said last month that it was “completely unfounded” to say that Chinese-made cranes posed a national security risk to the US.
“We firmly oppose the US overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to go after Chinese products and companies,” she said.
Source Agencies
