This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Welcome to Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch. I’m Ting—your cybersecurity oracle, equal parts byte wrangler and Mandarin decoder. Cut the small talk, friends: let’s deep-dive into Beijing’s cyber antics from this week, because your firewall’s heard the rumors and wants answers.

Let’s start with attackers. Chinese state-backed hacking is on the rise—and I’m talking organized, persistent, and taking full advantage of gaps in US federal cyberdefenses. The US Homeland Security Committee just dropped a Cyber Threat Snapshot declaring roughly 70% of US cyberattacks in 2024 hit critical infrastructure, and the Chinese Communist Party’s cyber operators are getting bolder. Their playbook? “Salt Typhoon”—a campaign that hit no fewer than nine telecom providers to exfiltrate wiretap data, presidential candidates’ calls, and sensitive meta-data. This isn’t just eavesdropping for kicks; it’s layered espionage sizing up US law enforcement and political communications.

Three big names—Storm-2603, Linen Typhoon, Violet Typhoon—breached over 400 US organizations via Microsoft SharePoint exploits. Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services all got an unwanted hello from Beijing, underscoring the need for tighter interagency coordination immediately. Remember, these attackers don’t discriminate—if your data is valuable, your network’s in their crosshairs.

Their tools? Alongside classics like spear-phishing and doppelganger domains (lookalike emails designed to catch tired employees off guard), this week surfaced a new technique: exploiting zero-days like the Motex Lanscope bug and F5’s BIG-IP vulnerabilities, where Chinese-linked threat clusters like UNC5221 and Jewelbug (Earth Alux) burrowed into supply chain environments and then moved laterally. Add in deployment of “Airstalk” malware that abuses AirWatch APIs for supply chain pivoting, and you’ve got a recipe fit for any well-funded APT group.

Targeted industries span manufacturing (most hit), finance, business services, energy, and utilities. That last one—power utilities—came under extra scrutiny after remarks from the NSA’s ex-director warning China was preloading US energy grid control systems with backdoors. If Beijing flicks a switch in an Indo-Pacific crisis, America might be left in the dark, literally. Utilities—and really, anyone delivering critical services—should factor Chinese cyber and supply chain exposure into their strategic planning, not as a hypothetical, but as a tangible, present risk.

Attribution is clearer than ever. Connections to Chinese academic institutions like Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School—prime computer science talent pools for the PLA—have been supported by US indictments, academic research, and industry forensics. Meanwhile, China’s use of “whole of society” approaches means you’ll find intelligence elements, private companies, professors, and even students roped into

This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.