This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

I’m Ting, your Cyber Sentinel on Beijing Watch, so let’s jack straight into this week’s Chinese ops against US networks.

The big storyline is persistence. The Pentagon’s new “Military and Security Developments Involving the PRC 2025” report says China’s cyber teams aren’t just stealing data anymore; they’re pre‑positioning in US critical infrastructure so they can flip switches in a crisis. According to that report, campaigns like Volt Typhoon showed they can burrow into energy, water, transportation, and communications systems across the United States and just sit there, quietly waiting.

Anadolu Agency’s coverage of that same report highlights a 150% surge in Chinese intrusions against US infrastructure in 2024, and that wave is still echoing through 2025. Those aren’t random scans; they’re surgical operations aimed at utilities, ports, telecom backbones, and logistics hubs that matter if there’s a showdown over Taiwan.

On the tactics side, MeriTalk reports that China-linked actors exploited a remote access support key at BeyondTrust, giving them a stealthy path into Treasury Department workstations. That’s classic Beijing tradecraft: hijack trusted tools, live off the land, and use stolen service account credentials, like the BRICKSTORM malware campaign that CISA and international partners warned about for long-term persistence in government and private networks.

Targeted industries this week? Three hot zones. First, critical infrastructure operators still dealing with the fallout of Volt Typhoon-style footholds. Second, federal and state agencies, especially defense-adjacent networks and even the judicial branch’s case filing systems. Third, the defense industrial base, where the new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification rollout at the Pentagon raises the bar—and also exposes which contractors haven’t caught up.

Attribution is getting sharper. The Pentagon report, CISA advisories, and public statements from US officials keep naming China directly, tying activity to state-backed groups aligned with the People’s Liberation Army and Ministry of State Security. That political cost is one reason Beijing is simultaneously tightening its own house: Cooley’s analysis of new Chinese draft cyber and data security rules shows Beijing demanding more logging, more MLPS compliance, and more technical support for Chinese public security bureaus—meaning Chinese operators will have richer domestic data sets to train on and hide behind.

Internationally, US lawmakers are pushing harder containment. The Times of India describes a letter from senior US legislators urging the Pentagon to blacklist 17 Chinese tech firms, from AI player DeepSeek to smartphone giant Xiaomi and display maker BOE, under the 1260H “military-linked” list. That’s economic warfare targeted at the same ecosystem that supports Chinese cyber and intelligence capabilities.

So what should my listeners actually do? At the tactical layer: harden remote access tools, kill shared admin accounts, deploy strict least privilege, and baseline service account behavior. Segment OT from IT in utilities and manufacturing. Assume any unmanaged edge device is hostile until proven otherwise. At the strategic layer: map supply-chain exposure to Chinese hardware, software, and cloud, track NDAA-driven procurement bans, and rehearse response plans for “latent access wakes up during a geopolitical crisis” scenarios.

I’m Ting, this was Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next breach autopsy. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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