This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

So listeners, here's the thing about this past week – China's been playing cyber chess while America's been playing checkers, and frankly, the board is getting pretty crowded with our pieces in the wrong spots.

Let me cut right to it. Salt Typhoon, the operation attributed to Chinese Ministry of State Security operatives and units within the People's Liberation Army, has been running a five-year campaign that's basically the cyber equivalent of having someone living in your house for half a decade. According to former FBI cyber official Cynthia Kaiser, the scale is so massive it's hard to imagine any American who wasn't touched by this thing. She said it plainly: "I can't envision a scenario where any American was spared, given the breadth of the campaign."

Here's what makes this technically terrifying. Pete Nicoletti, chief information security officer at Check Point, explained that the hackers achieved what he calls "full reign access" to telecommunications data. We're talking phone calls, text messages, the works. Nicoletti actually gave this haunting example – even a grandmother reminding her family member to pick up groceries could've been intercepted. That's unprecedented reach.

The attack methodology was sophisticated. These actors established persistent access and then methodically exfiltrated communications over five years, essentially mapping American movements at scale. Senior government officials and political figures were deliberately targeted. Former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other high-ranking figures were specific victims according to Nicoletti's assessment.

The affected systems span everything from telecommunications networks to government infrastructure to sensitive military installations. Think about that for a second. The backbone of American communications was compromised.

On the defensive side, FBI Director Kash Patel is now leading mitigation efforts. Federal agencies are conducting forensic examinations of phones, laptops, and servers while interviewing people connected to compromised systems. Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser, previously stated the attackers aimed to identify device owners and spy on government targets of interest.

But here's what keeps cybersecurity experts like Nicoletti up at night. The real danger isn't necessarily future attacks – it's that these operatives might still be embedded in various organizations, completely undetected, continuing their intelligence gathering operations.

The lesson here? The old "castle and moat" cybersecurity approach is dead. Organizations now have to accept that breaches are inevitable and focus instead on recovery speed and resilience rather than just prevention.

Thanks so much for tuning in, listeners. Make sure you subscribe for more deep dives into how our digital infrastructure is being attacked and defended.

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