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

Hey everyone, Ting here, diving into what's been absolutely wild in the cyber trenches this past week. So strap in because the US-China cyber battlefield just got a whole lot more interesting.

Let's kick off with what Taiwan's deputy foreign minister was doing slipping quietly into Israel in early December. Nobody wanted to talk about it publicly, but this is huge for understanding where security cooperation is heading. Taiwan and Israel are building these discreet ties in cybersecurity and AI, and the genius part is how they're hiding in plain sight. We're talking dual-use tech where a cyber assessment becomes a national security upgrade or an AI model transforms into infrastructure protection tools. The US is basically green-lighting this under the radar because it keeps things from escalating with Beijing while still getting critical expertise flowing.

Now flip to the Hill where Representative Andrew Garbarino is sweating bullets about the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act hitting a deadline on January 30th, 2026. This law lets companies and government share threat intel without getting sued, and it literally sunsetted at the end of September. Garbarino's racing to make it permanent because every single person meeting with him is panicking about it. The guy knows this cannot lapse again, and he's trying to shove it into must-pass bills just to keep the whole thing from collapsing.

Meanwhile, Chinese state-linked hackers are absolutely exploiting a critical zero-day flaw called CVE-2025-20393 in Cisco's Email Security Appliances, granting root access since November without patches. This is the kind of persistence that keeps CISA analysts up at night. These threat actors are executing what looks like pure espionage operations, and security experts are pointing out this aligns perfectly with leaked Chinese military documents about exploiting foreign vendors for cyber dominance.

Here's where it gets spicy though. Congress is literally pushing back against Trump administration moves to let Nvidia sell advanced H200 chips to China. Representative Brian Mast introduced the AI OVERWATCH Act requiring Congress get alerts before advanced semiconductor sales go to Beijing. Gregory Meeks proposed the RESTRICT Act to straight-up ban these exports. They're arguing that keeping China locked out of cutting-edge chips is essential to maintaining US AI leadership.

But wait, there's more. China just tightened its own cybersecurity laws effective January 1st, 2026, hiking penalties from one million yuan up to ten million yuan for critical infrastructure operators. That's roughly 1.4 million dollars. They're also expanding extraterritorial reach, meaning any overseas conduct endangering Chinese cybersecurity now falls under their jurisdiction. It's basically their way of showing they can play hardball too.

And senators Maggie Hassan and Gary Peters just sent letters December 18th targeting major construction firms about their use of Chinese-made DJI drones on sensitive infrastructure. They're arguing these create pathways for transferring national security information straight to Beijing.

Thanks so much for tuning in, listeners. Make sure to subscribe for more cyber intelligence breakdowns. This has been Quiet Please, for more check out quietplease dot ai.

For more http://www.quietplease.ai


Get the best deals https://amzn.to/3ODvOta

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