This is your US-China CyberPulse: Defense Updates podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here, and wow, what a week it's been in the cyber trenches between Washington and Beijing. Just when you thought things couldn't get spicier, we've got CISA getting a complete makeover while China's flexing its digital muscles harder than ever.

So let's talk about what's actually happening at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Nick Anderson, the new executive assistant director who used to be Vermont's CISO, is laser-focused on what he's calling the China 2027 threat. Western intelligence says the Chinese military will be ready for a full-scale Taiwan invasion by 2027, and Anderson's betting that'll come with massive cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. He's basically telling his team to forget the nice-to-have projects and master the core competencies: protecting federal dot-gov systems and coordinating critical infrastructure defense.

What's fascinating is CISA's already maxed out on capacity. Matthew Rogers, their operational technology cyber lead, revealed that over ten thousand critical infrastructure organizations signed up for free vulnerability scanning services, and they're literally at their limit for risk assessments. They're scrambling to scale up because let's be real, our power grids and water systems running on decades-old SCADA systems are basically sitting ducks.

Meanwhile, Sean Plankey, Trump's pick for CISA director, is stuck in Senate confirmation limbo due to partisan fights. His whole pitch was empowering operators to operate and getting whatever funding necessary to reorganize the agency. But here's the kicker: CISA just ended funding for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, forcing it into a paid membership model. So states and localities are now wondering how they're supposed to defend themselves with fewer resources.

On the offensive side, China just opened an antitrust probe into Qualcomm over their acquisition of Israeli chip designer Autotalks. This happened literally hours before Trump announced a new hundred percent tariff on Chinese imports starting November first. China's also hitting back with rare earth export controls, and considering these minerals power everything from semiconductors to electric vehicles to defense tech, that's a serious chess move. Beijing controls ninety percent of global rare earth processing, so they're basically holding the supply chain hostage.

The Fortune article called Trump's response textbook escalation: not just tariffs but export controls on critical software, though nobody's quite sure what that means yet. JD Vance said it's going to be a delicate dance and hoped China would choose reason, but China's Commerce Ministry fired back saying they don't want a trade war but aren't afraid of one either.

What's clear is this isn't just about tariffs anymore. It's about who controls the technology stack that powers modern warfare and critical infrastructure. CISA's betting everything on hardening our defenses before 2027, but with budget cuts, staffing issues, and China dominating rare earth supplies, we're essentially trying to build a fortress while the foundation's still shaky.

Thanks for tuning in listeners, and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next developments in this cyber showdown. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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