This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here with your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch update, and buckle up because Chinese threat actors have been absolutely relentless this past week.

Let's start with Jewelbug, a Chinese hacking collective that just pulled off something remarkable. Broadcom-owned Symantec just revealed that Jewelbug spent five months embedded inside a Russian IT service provider from January through May this year. Yeah, you heard that right, China hacking Russia. Despite all the diplomatic backslapping between Moscow and Beijing, espionage apparently knows no borders. These attackers had their hands in code repositories and software build systems, positioning themselves perfectly for supply chain attacks against Russian customers. What makes this particularly sneaky is they were exfiltrating data through Yandex Cloud, essentially hiding in plain sight using legitimate Russian infrastructure.

But Jewelbug wasn't done. They also hit a large South American government organization in July, deploying a brand new backdoor that uses Microsoft Graph API and OneDrive for command and control. This is textbook tradecraft, blending malicious traffic with normal business operations to avoid detection. The malware collects system information, enumerates files, and uploads everything to OneDrive. Good luck spotting that in your network logs.

The technical sophistication here is impressive. Jewelbug leveraged a renamed Microsoft Console Debugger to bypass application allowlisting, dumped credentials using tools like LSASS and Mimikatz, and deployed the KillAV tool to disable security software. They also used publicly available privilege escalation tools with names like PrintNotifyPotato and Sweet Potato. When they hit a Taiwanese company last year, they deployed ShadowPad, a backdoor exclusively used by Chinese state-linked groups.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's National Security Bureau is sounding alarm bells about escalating Chinese cyber attacks targeting government departments. They're also calling out Beijing's online troll army for spreading fabricated content across social networks, trying to undermine trust in Taiwan's government and create friction with the United States.

Chinese threat actors aren't just targeting governments either. According to recent reports, they're leveraging geo-mapping technology and custom remote access trojans to infiltrate critical infrastructure across Asia and North America. The targeting scope is expanding rapidly.

So what's the strategic takeaway? Chinese cyber operations are diversifying targets geographically and technically. They're using legitimate cloud services and native operating system tools to maintain stealth. The shift toward supply chain positioning shows they're thinking long-term about access and impact.

For defenders, this means assume breach mentality is critical. Monitor your cloud service usage patterns, especially Microsoft Graph API and OneDrive traffic. Implement robust application allowlisting that can't be bypassed by renamed system utilities. And for the love of security, enable comprehensive logging on everything, because these actors are actively clearing Windows Event Logs to cover their tracks.

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This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here from Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch, and wow—if you blinked in cyber, you missed a week’s worth of high-stakes intrigue straight out of a Tom Clancy novel! Let’s jump right in, because the past few days have been an absolute masterclass in stealth, disruption, and the ever-escalating digital cold war between China and the U.S.

Since last spring, UNC5221, a Chinese advanced persistent threat group with ties to Beijing’s Ministry of State Security, has been orchestrating espionage campaigns using ultra-stealthy malware like BRICKSTORM. This little gem doesn’t just sneak in—it practically builds a guest room in your network, sticking around for nearly 400 days on average, all while evading standard detection tools. Targets? If it sounds valuable or critical, it’s fair game: legal services, SaaS platforms, telecommunications giants, and even the unfortunate court surveillance systems. No industry with a digital pulse is safe.

Remember Salt Typhoon from 2023 and 2024? They breached AT&T, Verizon, even systems that kept tabs on high-profile political figures including folks from Trump’s and then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign teams. More recently, Volt Typhoon did their own power play, compromising infrastructure networks—think power grids, pipelines, and water plants. I’ll put it bluntly: if you’re wondering whether China could flip the switch on the U.S. during a crisis, the answer is disturbingly close to yes.

General Tim Hawk, former head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, has sounded the alarm, calling out China for targeting not just military assets, but practically every American. That includes hospital networks, transportation hubs, and utilities—making “unrestricted warfare” sound less theoretical and more like your Monday morning headache. Hawk revealed that sometimes hackers simply steal login credentials and lie dormant, constructing digital sleeper cells ready to wreak havoc whenever the party back in Beijing gives the nod.

Attribution in this climate is a game of cat and cyber-mouse. Google’s Threat Intelligence folks, Mandiant, and the Department of Justice are pulling out all the stops—indicting twelve Chinese nationals this March, including reputed Ministry officials, with evidence covering over 100 U.S. organizations from defense contractors to Treasury networks. Beijing, of course, remains in denial about everything, while the White House scrambles to track exposure and mitigate potential catastrophes.

International response? Britain’s security analysts are sounding increasingly shrill, urging their own government to shed squeamishness and bolster defensive posture against Chinese provocations. Globally, the chorus is the same: shore up resilience, strengthen public-private partnerships, and, for heaven’s sake, share intelligence rather than sweep breaches under the rug. The cost of silence has already run into the trillions in lost intellectual property.

Strategically, these hacks are not just routine IP theft—they’re digital rehearsal for real-world chaos. Beijing is positioning itself to weaponize U.S. infrastructure in any future conflict, a risk too big for isolated security teams to handle. Tactically, advanced malware and use of zero-day exploits mean signature-based defenses alone are, dare I say, so last decade. To really fight back, organizations must double down on network segmentation, monitor for lateral movement, invest in threat intelligence, and collaborate openly with peers and federal authorities.

So listeners, what do you do? Assume compromise is inevitable, but not defeat. Check your logs, change your passwords, segment your networks, and talk to your neighbors—because if the data’s not flowing to you, it’s definitely flowing to Beijing.

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This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Thanks for joining me, cyberspace comrades—Ting here, your insider for all things tech, China, and the shadows where the two meet. Let’s get straight into Beijing Watch: Cyber Sentinel, your frontline intel on the digital chessboard between Washington and the Middle Kingdom.

If the last week has felt like a reboot of a bad action sequel—trade tariffs, rare-earth crackdowns, and yes, a fresh round of cyber skirmishes—well, you’re not wrong. But forget flashy explosions; the real fireworks are in the data packets zipping between Shenzhen and Silicon Valley. According to CBS’s upcoming 60 Minutes segment, Gen. Tim Haugh, formerly of NSA and Cyber Command, is breaking his media silence to warn that Chinese cyber campaigns are zeroing in on U.S. critical infrastructure with renewed vigor and sophistication. That means energy grids, transport, and water systems are in the crosshairs—not just your average corporate breach.

Let’s talk trade for a hot second, because President Trump’s 100% tariff threat, set to drop November 1, and China’s snap export controls on rare earths—crucial for everything from smartphones to F-35s—aren’t just economic muscle-flexing. They’re directly shaping Beijing’s cyber posture. If the Ministry of Commerce’s public statements are any guide, China isn’t backing down, but they’re not exactly charging headfirst either. They’re playing the long game, leveraging control over minerals and manufacturing to keep global tech—and by extension, cybersecurity—dependent on Chinese supply chains. This is the kind of leverage that makes sanctions tricky and attribution even trickier.

On the tactical front, the past week’s cyber ops show a shift from traditional phishing to more nuanced attacks: think supply chain compromises, firmware-level implants in hardware shipped to the U.S., and AI-driven social engineering. Industries under the heaviest fire? Semiconductors, of course—Qualcomm just got hit with a Chinese antitrust probe over its Autotalks acquisition—but also green energy, logistics, and financial services. The goal isn’t just data theft; it’s persistent access and the ability to disrupt in a crisis.

Attribution? It’s a hall of mirrors, as always. But when you see attacks that mirror previous APT41 or Cloud Hopper activity, or when Chinese state media starts floating “national security” justifications for rare-earth export controls—well, let’s just say the dots aren’t that hard to connect. The White House isn’t shy about pointing fingers, but the international response has been muted, with Europe and ASEAN mostly hedging their bets, waiting to see if this is real escalation or just pre-APEC summit posturing.

So what’s a beleaguered CSO to do? First, assume your third-party vendors are now your weakest link—audit them, isolate them, monitor them. Second, patch not just your software, but your hardware firmware. Yes, even that microcontroller in the breakroom coffee machine. Third, invest in threat intelligence sharing; silos are so 2010. And strategically? Diversify your supply chains, because depending on a single geopolitical rival for both chips and critical minerals is like building your firewall out of wet cardboard.

The big picture? This isn’t just tit-for-tat; it’s the digital equivalent of two superpowers playing chicken with global supply chains. If you think the stakes are high now, just wait until someone flips the killswitch on a major pipeline or blackouts a city. The only winners will be the folks who saw it coming and prepared.

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This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Listeners, it’s Ting, your guide through China’s cyber labyrinth—and what a week it’s been. Let’s jump into the real action, starting with news so fresh it’s practically still sizzling: the United States just slapped 16 Chinese drone suppliers—including names like Easy Fly Intelligent and Feng Bao Trading—onto its blacklist. Why? Recovered drone parts from attacks by Iranian proxies like Hamas and the Houthis were traced back to these companies, with UAV components funneled in violation of U.S. national security interests. The feds found U.S.-origin electronics embedded in recovered debris, implicating Chinese facilitators behind procurement efforts fueling militant actions in the Middle East.

But the cyber front isn’t just about hardware these days. There’s a new twist: as reported by Truesec and SC World, Chinese espionage groups are harnessing generative AI—think ChatGPT—to supercharge spear-phishing campaigns. Operation UTA0388, among others, targets firms in North America, weaving emails in multiple languages and adapting malware in record time. They craft seemingly legit conversations and slip in trojanized documents, all with AI-generated “slop”—sometimes junk files, sometimes embarrassing content. The upside for defenders? These AI-driven attacks, while prolific, often show rookie mistakes in metadata or weird phrasing, which makes them easier to spot if you’re trained. Still, the sheer scale is daunting: more phishing, more RATs like GOVERSHELL, more “firehose” tactics.

This isn’t just nuisance-level stuff. According to American Security Project, agentic AI-based cyberweapons are now the go-to for state-sponsored attackers against U.S. critical infrastructure. By auto-adapting to new environments—scanning, infiltrating, rerouting—they multiply the threat curve exponentially. If we don’t ramp up defenses, U.S. infrastructure operators will keep playing whack-a-mole against botmasters using AI not only for speed but for persistence.

On the attribution front, security alerts circle around two Chinese APTs—Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon—popular for exploiting TP-Link routers. Bloomberg reports the U.S. is actively considering a national security determination that might see TP-Link banned or restricted in the U.S. These groups have targeted core sectors, everything from healthcare and ports to law firms. Case in point: attorney email accounts at a top U.S. political law firm were compromised using a zero-day exploit, revealing both technical skill and a likely China nexus. Ransomware threats are also evolving, as Storm-2603 repurposes enterprise defense tools, including Velociraptor and Nezha, to maintain persistent access and deliver malware like Gh0st RAT.

International responses remain as fragmented as you’d expect. The U.S. is tightening export controls and lobbying global partners to identify supply chain threats, yet China counterpunched this week by adding 14 foreign organizations—including several American companies—to its own “unreliable entity list.” War on the Rocks highlights that U.S. policymakers are still locked in debate over how to designate and defend supply chains as critical infrastructure, despite mounting evidence these risks aren’t hypothetical. Until supply chains get recognized with real oversight, expect more holes than net.

So, what’s the security playbook this week? First, invest in advanced phishing detection using behavioral analysis—AI versus AI. Train staff to spot not just bad grammar but weirdly generic metadata and faked sender details, especially if it’s a first-time contact or from unfamiliar regions. Patch your routers and review supply chain relationships; TP-Link’s situation is a harbinger of things to come. Monitor ratty open-source tools repurposed as attack vectors. Strategically, it’s time to push Congress to elevate supply chains as their own infrastructure sector—only continuous mapping, cross-industry councils, and fallback reserves can reduce systemic vulnerability.

Listeners, that’s the week’s cyber pulse—fast, furious, and full of lessons. For more expert snark and insight, subscribe to Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch. Thanks for tuning in. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Ting here, and trust me, you’ll want to stick with me for the next few minutes because Beijing Watch has been nothing short of electric. If you’ve been wondering what the cyber sentinels in China have been up to lately, let’s just say their playbook never stays the same for long. In the last few days, we’ve seen a barrage of sophisticated probes targeting the legal sector—with Williams & Connolly, that high-flying Washington law firm famous for defending Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, right at the center. Yes, Chinese hackers have breached their email systems by weaponizing a zero-day vulnerability, which basically means exploiting a flaw so new that even the vendor didn’t know it existed. CrowdStrike’s technical forensics point to a Chinese state-backed group running a broader campaign that’s also hit at least a dozen other law firms and big-name tech companies coast to coast.

Zero-days are cyber gold these days, and the goal here is intelligence collection, not smash-and-grab damage or headline-seeking data dumps. The Mandiant September report says Chinese groups are on a years-long espionage sprint, siphoning legal secrets and trade data tied to US national security and international deals. So why law firms? Because they hold the crown jewels: negotiations, contracts, patents, and privileged communication. Lawyers, it’s not just your printers you need to secure—get your cloud storage and email platforms locked down and watch out for suspicious lateral movement inside your networks.

Meanwhile, OpenAI just blocked a cluster of ChatGPT accounts traced to Chinese actors who were developing malware and phishing toolkits using AI. The accounts were trying to automate phishing and sneak around antivirus filters using PowerShell scripts—a clever move, but fortunately for us, OpenAI’s safety features stepped in just in time. If you’re wondering about the classic attribution dilemma, experts at CrowdStrike and Volexity flagged signatures matching the infamous UTA0388 group, known for malware like XenoRAT and C2 infrastructures parked on GitHub. This is important because AI-assisted attack methodologies are rapidly changing the game, making operational security and continual monitoring more critical than ever.

Let’s get tactical: industries targeted include software, law, academic, diplomatic, and even semiconductor manufacturing if you look at the attacks on Taiwan noted by Huntress. One technical highlight: Chinese actors abused the open-source Nezha monitoring tool paired with log poisoning—injecting web shells disguised as log files to control compromised servers. The Nezha dashboard was run in Russian, with victim machines sprawled across the globe, including the US and multiple Asian and European countries.

If you’re listening from the frontlines—CISO, IT lead, or legal counsel—here’s what should be on your radar now. Patch early and often, especially on third-party management tools and cloud systems. Segment internal networks to stop lateral movement. Implement threat hunting with behavior analytics because these actors love to blend in. On the strategic front, US government collaboration with private-sector defenders is ramping up, as are calls for international cyber norms—though Beijing still denies all involvement, as usual.

The implications? Expect more stealthy, patient operations. Defenders must think like adversaries: automate detection, employ deception grids, and stay ahead of the curve with machine-learning security controls. Beijing’s cyber sentinels are agile, and so must we be.

That’s your Cyber Sentinel briefing from Ting—thanks for tuning in, don’t forget to hit subscribe, and keep your VPNs strong. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Sure, I’m Ting, your boots-on-the-keyboard cyber sentinel, and this week’s Beijing Watch is coming at you straight from the digital frontlines—because in cybersecurity, Monday mornings are never boring, and October 6, 2025, is no exception.

We’re seeing the People’s Republic of China double down on AI-driven, supply-chain-centric cyber operations that are less about smash-and-grab and more about persistent, granular erosion of the West’s resilience. According to Booz Allen Hamilton, the PRC’s playbook now leverages force multipliers like trusted vendor compromise, edge device exploitation, AI automation, and sophisticated attribution obfuscation. Translation: Beijing is building long-term, hard-to-detect footholds in U.S. and allied networks, and they’re doing it in a way that lets them move fast, hide well, and shrug off blame.

Let me paint the tactical picture. Imagine a U.S. port—let’s say, the Port of Long Beach. It’s running Chinese-made cranes with weak passwords, flat networks, and a laundry list of unpatched OT vulnerabilities flagged by the U.S. Coast Guard. These devices aren’t just a ticking time bomb; they’re a backdoor buffet. Booz Allen notes that even if there’s no smoking-gun backdoor in every router or switch, the opacity and scale of PRC supply chain penetration creates systematic risk. And it’s not just hardware. Beijing’s operator teams—likely linked to the Ministry of State Security via firms like BIETA and CIII—are methodically mapping defense institutions and critical infrastructure across Five Eyes countries, seeding access now for potential disruption later.

On the software side, meet UAT-8099, a Chinese-speaking cybercrime crew uncovered by ESET and Cisco Talos. These folks are all about SEO fraud, targeting high-value IIS servers from Mumbai to Montreal, dropping custom web shells, and using tools like Cobalt Strike and BadIIS. They’re financially motivated, but their TTPs—privilege escalation, RDP pivoting, VPN tunneling—mirror state-sponsored ops. The takeaway? The line between criminal and state-backed activity in China’s cyber ecosystem is blurrier than ever.

Now, let’s talk AI. StrongestLayer reports this is the week agentic AI went from lab curiosity to real-world weapon, with the first malicious Model Context Protocol server spotted in the wild. Enterprises are drowning in alerts—960 a day on average, with 40% going uninvestigated—while shadow AI adoption surges 50%. This means sensitive data is flowing into unmonitored models, and defenders are already overwhelmed. Beijing’s AI acceleration isn’t just about malware—it’s about supercharging reconnaissance, targeting, and data exfiltration at a pace that outflanks traditional SOCs.

So, what’s the international response? Honestly, it’s patchy. The U.S. government shutdown has kneecapped intelligence sharing at the worst possible time, while allies are scrambling to catch up. The strategic implication is stark: without coordinated action, the PRC’s incremental gains in cyber and influence operations may harden into structural advantages that shift the global balance of power.

Here’s my expert take for listeners—both tactical and strategic. First, if you’re in defense, energy, logistics, or maritime, assume you’re already targeted. Segment your networks, audit third-party vendors with a zero-trust lens, and lock down edge devices. Deploy AI-driven behavioral analytics, but don’t neglect basics like patch management and credential hygiene. Second, pressure your policymakers to close the intelligence-sharing gap and push for international norms around supply chain transparency. Third, treat every incident not as an isolated event but as part of a broader, state-aligned campaign. The goal isn’t just to block attacks—it’s to reclaim the initiative.

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This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Listeners, this is Ting, your cyber Sherlock and resident watcher on Beijing Watch. Let’s dive right into how the pixelated pulse of China’s cyber operatives has been thumping across US networks this week. If you thought the plot to disrupt New York City’s telecom system during the UN General Assembly was dramatic—buckle up. That scheme, blown open by US Secret Service sleuths, wasn’t just a garden-variety hack. We’re talking over 100,000 SIM cards, hundreds of hidden SIM servers spanning Manhattan’s shadowy corners, poised to jam 911, overload cell towers, and cloak communications, all allegedly threaded back to Chinese operators. That’s not just cyber-rattling—it’s brinkmanship with our emergency infrastructure in the crosshairs, right as world leaders gather. Investigators are still unraveling the network’s veins, but with timing like that, it screams coordination for geopolitical effect.

This wave aligns with a broader trend—Chinese state-aligned groups are zeroing in not just on government, but on transport, public administration, and digital infrastructure, especially in sectors tied to supply chains and critical services. ENISA’s latest report pinpoints aviation, maritime, and even NGOs and advocacy groups as favorite targets in this ongoing shadowboxing match. Meanwhile, the consulting world isn’t immune; the recent hack of Credera, that boutique brain trust advising titans like Mercedes and AT&T, shows attackers are exploiting trust. By breaching partners or consultants, they get the keys to the client’s kingdom. That breach reportedly exposed not just sensitive project data and private keys but also blueprints for secondary attacks—a cascade risk for any business with a sprawling digital ecosystem.

Technical trends this week? Massive scanning spikes on security vendor portals like Palo Alto Networks—up 500% in a single day, possibly as reconnaissance for exploiting zero-days or weak credentials. On the malware front, new China-linked phantom actor groups like Phantom Taurus have quietly targeted governments and telcos in Asia and the Middle East with customized stealth backdoors. And let’s not forget low-tech but high-impact: the rise of SIM farms and supply-chain attacks, illustrating that it’s not always about zero-days—sometimes it’s the hardware you lease or the vendor you trust.

International reaction has been swift, if not always unified. Federal agencies are intensifying monitoring, urging telecoms to deploy anomaly detection, and pushing for tighter controls on physical supply chains. European agencies, like the EU’s ENISA, are mapping the new normal—where cyberespionage, info operations, and infrastructure meddling walk hand in hand. Strategic implication: adversaries like China aren’t just probing US defenses but physically embedding themselves in the gaps between digital and real world.

Recommended action? For the tactical: implement defense-in-depth, centralize detection and response, and scrutinize vendors as if they were adversaries—because this week, Credera proved they can be the weakest link. Strategically, the US needs tighter public–private intel sharing, more supply chain visibility, and a serious look at the civil–military fusion model driving China’s tech goals. Remember: if you’re defending digital doors but leaving the windows wide open, don’t be surprised when the cat comes in.

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This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here on Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch, where China’s cyber maneuvering meets razor-sharp analysis and just a sprinkle of sarcasm. Strap in—these last few days have been a clinic in how high-level hacking and global diplomacy do a messy tango.

Let’s start with a campaign that’s making CISOs lose sleep across multiple continents—UAT-8099, the Chinese-speaking cybercrime crew Cisco Talos has been tracking. Since April 2025, these folks have been hijacking Internet Information Services, or IIS servers—think the digital bouncers for a ton of tech firms, universities, and even telecoms from India to Canada. The twist? They’re not breaking in for state secrets. No, these hackers are doing search engine optimization fraud, quietly boosting shady websites for a payday, and using stolen server rep as rocket fuel for illegal gambling and dodgy ads. Imagine walking into a Fortune 500 boardroom and redirecting everyone to an underground casino. That’s the scale.

Their weapon of choice—customized *BadIIS* malware, fresh variants specially built to slip past antivirus software. Once they find a vulnerable server, it’s like a bad houseguest: web shells for snooping, guest accounts promoted straight to admin, Remote Desktop Protocol for persistent access, all backstopped by VPN tools like SoftEther and FRP. They even protect turf with defense tools so other hackers can’t muscle in. And if you’re a mobile user on iOS or Android? Sorry, you’re right in the blast radius, with server-placed fake app downloads tailored just for you.

If you’re thinking this is amateur hour—guess again. These operations automate everything, from deploying Cobalt Strike beacons masked as legitimate code modules to injecting malicious JavaScript that fools both Googlebots and your grandma, depending on who visits the link. That means not just operational disruption and credential theft, but an entire criminal economy built on the bones of American, Canadian, and global digital infrastructure.

Switching gears, let’s talk Shanghai Suochen Information Technology—a company recently swept into the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security’s 50% Rule net. This move now means any subsidiary, even those hiding in Europe or deeply nested in Chinese ownership webs, gets the same strict export scrutiny as Suochen itself. Why? Their subsidiaries have supplied simulation tech, electronics, and even naval defense systems to the PLA and related military factories. PLA’s Naval Aviation University? Yep, Suochen’s bids landed there. The kicker—entities in the UK and Hungary, technically “clean,” are now entangled by the rule, so U.S. exporters beware: due diligence just got a hardcore upgrade.

What about government responses? China doubled down on its internal defenses with a one-hour reporting rule for cybersecurity incidents. Talk about response agility—if only U.S. agencies moved that fast, especially now with a federal shutdown hobbling the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Congress has yet to shutdown-proof CISA, leaving U.S. cyber defenses under-protected and public-private coordination stretched thin.

Tactical implications: patch your IIS servers yesterday and lock down remote access—segmentation, MFA, endpoint monitoring, the works. At a strategic level, nobody can afford to sleep on corporate ownership webs—attackers sure aren’t. And expecting Uncle Sam to swoop in and save your servers? That’s a fairy tale—your defense posture is on you.

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This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here on Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch, your favorite cyber sage popping the firewall on this week’s wild ride in Chinese cyber operations targeting US security. Spoiler alert: Beijing’s playbook just got stickier and sneakier, and it’s not just another script kiddie story—this is the stuff of real spies, edge-device kung fu, and zero-day dramas.

Let’s dive straight into the salt of the matter—Salt Typhoon, the espionage unit that makes “persistence” look boring. Salt Typhoon is aligned with the Ministry of State Security and has spent the last year ramping up attacks against US telecoms including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and allied networks. Their specialty? Exploiting the no-man’s-land known as network edge devices—routers, VPN gateways, and firewalls. They harvest call detail records, lawful intercept logs, and credentials in bulk. You think your metadata is safe? Not with these guys prowling Cisco and Fortinet vulnerabilities. What’s mind-blowing is their “industrialized” infrastructure. Salt Typhoon registers fake US identities, snags legit SSL certificates from big names like GoDaddy, and runs a maze of DNS clusters. You spot their campaign by tracking shady ProtonMail accounts out of Miami, or by following repeat name server activity.

Tactically, they use firmware implants and bespoke malware—no payloads landing on your endpoint, it’s the hardware that gets hijacked. Recent attribution efforts even finger Yin Kecheng and Zhou Shuai, indicted and sanctioned for brokering stolen data and running the tech behind those implants through front firms like i-SOON and Sichuan Juxinhe. It’s MSS outsourcing at scale, and it means the US has to rethink supply chain security, not just endpoint defense.

Now, switch to another flavor with Phantom Taurus—a new APT defined by Palo Alto Networks. Phantom Taurus spends its days targeting US and allied government databases, telecoms, and embassies, mostly across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, extracting defense intelligence and diplomatic comms. Their latest campaigns ditch boring old phishing for the shock-and-awe of NET-STAR, a .NET malware suite specifically built for IIS web servers. NET-STAR is nasty: its IIServerCore backdoor runs fileless in RAM, loads payloads, evades detection, and encrypts its trails. Versions AssemblyExecuter V1 and V2 can bypass Windows Antimalware and event tracing, meaning Phantom Taurus can grab operational intelligence—think embassy memos—without tripping alarms.

Strategically, Beijing is playing both defense and offense. On the home front, the Cyberspace Administration’s fresh one-hour reporting rules mean any major breach inside China gets flagged, graded, and reported almost in real time—compare with the US, where critical incident reporting is still a mellow 72-hour affair. Internationally, China leverages front companies for deniability, blends living-off-the-land tactics with custom malware to evade attribution, and times its hacks with big political events and US mobilization efforts. This puts critical sectors—telecom, defense, even municipal governments—on red alert.

For defenders, recommendations are clear: Monitor for fake domain registrations and bulk SSLs attached to fabricated identities. Deploy robust firmware validation and anomaly monitoring on edge devices. Harden detection around SQL and IIS server activity—track for suspicious WMI executions and fileless malware. On the strategic front, international collaboration is urgent, especially on intelligence sharing and coordinated threat attribution.

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This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here—your insider on all things China, cyber, and hacking, reporting to you from the digital trenches. Forget small talk; we’re diving straight into Beijing Watch: Cyber Sentinel’s rundown for the week ending September 29, 2025. Buckle your seatbelts—this ride is pure zero-day adrenaline.

Chinese cyber operators have moved from subtle probes to high-impact campaigns, with the biggest tremor shaking the US coming from the so-called ArcaneDoor group. According to Cisco, these folks exploited not one but two fresh zero-day vulnerabilities—CVE-2025-20333 and CVE-2025-20362—in Cisco ASA and Secure Firewall Threat Defense gear. What’s wild is they went beyond just snooping; they gained root access, disabled security logs, intercepted CLI commands, and even crashed devices to foil forensic teams. When you can brick firewalls remotely and keep your backdoors after reboots and patches, you’ve leveled up from script kiddie to nation-state juggernaut.

The U.S. CISA, led by Chris Butera, just dropped an emergency fix order—meaning hundreds of federal agencies are urgently hunting for compromised firewalls. But this isn’t just a government headache; CISA and Cisco both warn private sector and other governments to get patching. Across the pond, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre confirmed the same code implants are popping up in critical infrastructure, hinting at an international pre-positioning phase. Translation: Chinese state actors are digging foxholes across Western networks for potential future data exfiltration or even disruptive sabotage—not just information theft.

Which industries are the top targets right now? Telecom remains ground zero. Cisco Talos has tracked the Naikon threat group targeting Asian telcos and manufacturers since 2022, but after months lurking in Central and South Asia, attackers have pivoted westward. Naikon, using their signature PlugX and RainyDay backdoors, abuses legitimate applications with DLL sideloading and advanced XOR-RC4-RtlDecompressBuffer encryption. If you build or operate communications networks, your supply chain has a bullseye on it—and utilities are especially vulnerable thanks to embedded modules and lax vendor vetting. The latest Department of Defense memo expands oversight to include Chinese cellular modem suppliers for IoT and utility systems, which means a regulatory crackdown is coming.

Attribution-wise, most signals still point toward Chinese state-sponsored actors, often blending tools and infrastructure among overlapping teams like BackdoorDiplomacy and Naikon. The evidence? Identical malware loaders, RC4 keys reused, and overlapping payloads picked up in unrelated incidents. So, if you see PlugX, RainyDay, or Turian cropping up in a breach report, it’s not just copycats—it’s persistent adversaries swapping parts from the same toolbox.

The international response? For starters, the US just denied DJI’s attempt to ditch its “Chinese military company” label on export controls, citing ties to the Chinese National Enterprise Technology Center. Meanwhile, the House Select Committee on the CCP is pushing the FCC to purge suspect Chinese modules from US communications and IoT devices entirely. Overseas, governments are rolling out ransomware bailouts—like the UK’s massive $2B lifeline to Jaguar Land Rover after ransomware sidelined its supply chain for nearly a month. There’s clear acknowledgment: cyber risk is now systemic economic risk.

What should security teams do? Segment your IT and OT networks ruthlessly. Patch your Cisco firewalls yesterday. Audit every endpoint from Apple serialization exploits to SonicWall VPNs. Rethink supply chain dependencies—ensure continuity beyond 30 days, not just the next invoice. And finally, invest in talent—teenagers recruited by hackers on Telegram are a thing. Train them white-hat before they’re wearing red.

That’s your Beijing Watch briefing! Thanks for tuning in to Cyber Sentinel. Subscribe for sharp, expert coverage and a little Ting wit every week. This has been a Quiet Please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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