This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

This is Ting, your digital dragon watcher, and wow, buckle up listeners—the past week in China cyber has been a fire-breathing spectacle. Cyber threats, state action, and headline-worthy espionage moves, all with a twist of tech innovation—let's dive right into the wires.

First up, let’s talk attack vectors: Microsoft and Sophos have been sounding the alarm on the WarLock ransomware gang, who arguably deserve a “rookie of the year” title for sheer nerve. These folks, with clear suspected Beijing backing, ramped up attacks and unveiled some fresh tactics. Since March, they’ve hit a spectrum of targets, from small agencies to digital powerhouses like France’s Orange and the UK’s Colt. The showstopper? Their latest operation exploited a zero-day flaw in on-premise Microsoft SharePoint—an attack chain featuring clever web shell deployments and covert tunneling with legit admin tools like Velociraptor. Microsoft highlighted Chinese state-aligned actors tagging along, especially with the Salt Typhoon group, who cracked into government networks using these SharePoint exploits. Let me translate: thousands of organizations, lots in the public sector, have been left exposed and scrambling to patch.

It didn’t stop there. The infamous Volt Typhoon group stayed true to form, burrowing deep into U.S. critical infrastructure. U.S. officials and Dragos are warning that these actors have successfully nested inside utilities—especially water systems—across the country, laying groundwork for a potential crisis if tensions over Taiwan boil over. Picture rogue code ready to turn off water in entire cities, just by flipping the digital switch.

Now, over in the Indo-Pacific, Hive0154—also known as Mustang Panda—dropped a new Toneshell backdoor plus the novel SnakeDisk USB worm. This little nasty only operates in Thailand, spreading through USB drives and deploying the Yokai backdoor. The cyber zoo never looked so wild. Meanwhile, botnet Aisuru, with its megaton of infected devices, keeps flooding targets in China, the U.S., and Europe. If your sysadmin seems frazzled, blame Aisuru.

State side, U.S. government agencies are in high alert mode. New Federal Acquisition Regulation rules strictly limit Chinese telecom hardware, aiming to close backdoors and keep critical networks shaded from cyber snoops. The CISA has been putting the word out about Ivanti endpoint vulnerabilities after threat actors exploited fresh CVEs, with malware enabling remote code on compromised servers.

What's China doing about its own digital drama? The Cyberspace Administration's sweeping "Clean Internet" campaign landed hard on social media giants like Weibo and Kuaishou this week—cracking down not just on celebrity gossip, but targeting rumor-mongering, fake influencers, and manipulative online campaigns. Nearly 900 bits of false news vaporized in Tianjin alone, plus more than a thousand rumor cases squashed in Inner Mongolia.

So, what’s the expert advice for defense? It’s basic but critical. Patch fast—SharePoint admins, this means you! Segregate networks, lock down endpoint protections, and remember: never ever store your passwords in plain text, like that unfortunate Huntress client who handed over their keys to an attacker. Water operators, plug into programs like Project Franklin, where DEF CON veterans are coaching utility staff on cyber defense and donating next-gen tools like Cloudflare and Dragos.

My top pick: proactively hunt for nation-state footprints, not just obvious malware. Collaborate tight, not just inside the U.S. but across the Indo-Pacific—cyber skirmishes are regional now, not just bilateral. And if you’re running AI, check the provenance: vendors like DeepSeek can introduce subtle vulnerabilities, especially if you’re flagged as a dissident or perceived threat.

That’s this week’s Digital Dragon Watch. Thanks for tuning in, listeners. Subscribe for your next download of China’s cyber chess moves. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

Ting here, your dragon-tamer on the Digital Dragon Watch, and wow, the last seven days in China cyber have been a wild firewall ride. Let’s dive right in, because the latest Defense Department moves could fill an entire season of cyber thrillers. The Pentagon just banned cloud vendors from using China-based personnel on defense systems—yeah, after ProPublica exposed Microsoft’s nearly decade-long habit of letting engineers in China tinker with U.S. military cloud code. Turns out, the so-called “digital escorts,” those U.S.-based supervisors, often had less technical chops than the people they were supposed to shadow. Classic big tech workaround, but a field day if you like drama and a national security migraine if you don’t. Now, not only must everyone working on Pentagon cloud be from non-adversarial countries, but every keystroke by foreign engineers gets logged in forensic detail, audit-trail style. Microsoft, feeling the heat, promised it’s done with the China-support model and is on board with the shiny new requirements.

Meanwhile, Chinese threat actors flexed social engineering muscles by impersonating Representative John Moolenaar, the chair of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition with the Chinese Communist Party. They fired off spear-phishing emails that looked like legit legislative business—fake requests for feedback on sanctions drafts, aimed at U.S. officials, law firms, trade groups, even foreign governments. What made it dangerous wasn’t fancy code; it was exploiting government workflow routines. The FBI and Capitol Police are knee-deep investigating. Bottom line: If your inbox lights up with a congressional “request for input,” click with suspicion.

Malware aficionados, you’ll love this: CISA’s latest analysis flags a new chain-attack using vulnerabilities in Ivanti Endpoint Manager Mobile. In May, Ivanti dropped patches for CVE-2025-4427 and CVE-2025-4428, but threat actors quickly pulled together a sophisticated “malicious listener.” This malware sniffs out HTTP requests, slips in via base64-encoded segments, and exfiltrates LDAP credentials—impressive stealth. So, CISO friends, patch fast, segment your networks, and crank up monitoring for weird HTTP traffic.

Ransomware buffs: The Qilin gang has surged to number one with 25% of ransomware attacks against state and local governments in Q2 this year. They run a double-extortion racket—encryption plus data theft, then threaten to leak. Rising after RansomHub affiliates jumped ship, Qilin’s bounce comes with average ransoms hitting mid-six-figures. They’re hitting public services, critical infrastructure, Chrome credential stores; usually getting in via phishing or exploiting internet-facing holes.

What’s Washington doing? The White House is pushing hard to reauthorize CISA 2015, the cyber info-sharing law, facing September 30 expiration. Without it, private companies, who actually own most of America’s attack surface, are left with less incentive to share threat info, which means we all get more blind spots. National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross and CISA’s Nick Andersen have gone full court press with Congress, arguing the law’s legal shield must stay—otherwise, no company wants the “share intel and get sued” experience.

For defense, experts—Gloria Glaubman and Matt Hayden included—are spelling out the need for companies not just to patch but to get nimble at interpreting threat intelligence. The Chinese crews like Volt Typhoon are blending in, using legit admin tools so there’s no malware signature, just another “admin guy poking around after hours.” That’s forcing defenders to move from signature-based to behavior-based detection. Time to upskill the SOC!

If you’re at all connected to critical infrastructure or the government supply chain, the main recommendations are: patch anything internet-facing, audit your service providers for offshore access, train your staff against phishing—and treat every email from Washington as a wolf in sheep’s clothing unless you can absolutely verify it. The dragon’s breath is still hot, folks.

Thanks for tuning in, digital warriors. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a smoke signal, and keep your shields up until next week. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here with your Digital Dragon Watch, and wow, what a week it's been in the China cyber realm. Let me dive straight into the chaos that's been unfolding.

So August and July weren't just summer months - they were prime hunting season for TA415, that notorious Chinese state-sponsored group that goes by more aliases than a spy novel character. We're talking APT41, Brass Typhoon, Wicked Panda, the whole crew. These folks just wrapped up a particularly nasty phishing campaign targeting US government entities, think tanks, and academic organizations.

Here's where it gets interesting - they weren't just dropping your standard malware. Instead, TA415 got creative and established Visual Studio Code remote tunnels for persistent access. Think of it as leaving a permanent backdoor that looks completely legitimate to IT departments. Proofpoint caught them red-handed masquerading as John Moolenaar, the Chair of the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the US and the Chinese Communist Party. They were sending fake emails requesting feedback on draft legislation regarding China sanctions. Talk about bold.

The attackers spoofed the US-China Business Council too, sending invitations to supposed closed-door briefings about US-Taiwan affairs. Their targets weren't random - they specifically went after individuals specializing in international trade and economic policy. The Wall Street Journal broke the Moolenaar impersonation story earlier this month, but we're just now getting the technical details.

But wait, there's more. The US just joined twelve other nations releasing a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory about Salt Typhoon, another Chinese APT group that's been busy since 2021. These guys infiltrated at least nine US telecommunications companies back in December, targeting critical infrastructure with surgical precision.

Salt Typhoon, along with their buddies OPERATOR PANDA and GhostEmperor, have been exploiting vulnerabilities in routers and firewalls to maintain long-term access. They're not just stealing data - they're tracking global communications and movements, essentially building a surveillance network that would make any intelligence service jealous.

What makes this particularly concerning is how they're evolving their tactics. They're now targeting edge devices and exploiting peering connections for data exfiltration. The initial access methods remain unclear, which is keeping cybersecurity experts up at night.

The US response has been swift but fragmented. We've got the Cyber Unified Coordination Group involving CISA, FBI, NSA, and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence. But experts are calling for a more unified approach - essentially an economic NATO model for cybersecurity.

For organizations listening, especially in telecommunications, the advice is clear: conduct immediate threat hunting activities and report any suspicious activity to authorities. Remember, partial responses just alert the attackers, so coordination is key.

Thanks for tuning in listeners, and don't forget to subscribe for your weekly dose of digital dragon spotting. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here with your Digital Dragon Watch for September 15, 2025. Let’s rip into this week’s top China-related cyber drama—because, wow, things moved fast!

First up, the Cyberspace Administration of China dropped a regulatory nuke: new rules launching November 1 force network operators to report the nastiest cyber incidents within one hour—yep, 60 minutes—from discovery. Think government portal takedowns, mega data leaks, or attacks that jack up the daily life for over 10 million people or half a province. The bar for “particularly serious” is high—incidents lingering more than 24 hours or leaking over 100 million personal records make the cut. This is China’s hard answer to an incident last week, when Dior’s Shanghai branch got slapped with a fine for sending customer data abroad without the right permissions. Apparently, major public blow-ups like that get officialdom moving faster than a zero-day exploit. According to the South China Morning Post, penalties under proposed amendments could hit up to 10 million yuan for infrastructure providers and 1 million yuan for individuals if the new law passes. Miss a log or fail to report and boom—those fines kick in.

But the offensive side saw fireworks too. Let’s talk Salt Typhoon—a Beijing-linked campaign the Australian Signals Directorate and FBI just called out as having “gone global.” The Salt Typhoon group, attributed to China’s notorious Ministry of State Security, burst past classic espionage. Their August attack updates show millions of Australians’ personal data scooped up, and U.S. federal analysts now warn these hackers are scraping up telecom, lodgings, and transport data from dozens of countries. If you live in the Indo-Pacific, odds are your info is now in some PLA analyst’s database. This illustrates a morph from discreet spy games to mass-scale data weaponization, fueling geopolitical friction and raising the bar for defenses.

How’s Uncle Sam responding? Export controls dominate the chessboard. Throughout late 2024 and this year, the Biden and Trump administrations have each dialed up restrictions on Chinese access to advanced chips—think semiconductors, memory, and even chip design tools. By summer, eighty more Chinese firms got slapped onto the Entity List, and the HBM memory chip ban closed one of China’s last loopholes to build next-gen AI systems. But, enforcement leaks like a cheap VPN. Chinese companies are still finding ways to rent cloud-based high-power GPUs via U.S. platforms, ducking direct hardware export bans. Congress is now mulling bans not just for chips, but also for entire sectors like critical minerals and pharma. The key point? US authorities emphasize the importance of cross-industry vigilance—from academic partnerships to the supply chain of something as basic as a smart fridge, nothing is trivial.

Expert tip: Focus on layered defense. Cyber authorities in Australia, the US, and Britain all recommend zero-trust: verify every user, lock down lateral movement, and isolate critical infrastructure. Regular patching is as vital as morning coffee. Plus, track outbound traffic for signs your data is suddenly vacationing in Shanghai.

China, for its part, keeps pushing the narrative that everybody’s at fault, calling for “cooperative, orderly cyberspace.” But with official statements like Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian asserting China’s peaceful intent—while global agencies tie major campaigns to Beijing—interpret with a healthy dose of skepticism. Public-private info sharing remains your best early warning.

That wraps this week’s dragon hunt. Smash that subscribe button and keep your endpoints patched. 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 Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

Welcome back, Digital Dragon Watchers—Ting here, your guide to the wild frontier of China cyber and hacking where the only thing changing faster than the firewall is my wardrobe. Let's cut the intro shorter than a WeChat sticker and get right to the juicy bits from the last seven days.

If you blinked on Wednesday, you probably missed the hack of the decade: China’s Great Firewall—that notorious brainchild of Fang Binxing, “father of Chinese censorship”—sprouted a digital geyser, leaking 500 gigabytes of code, internal docs, work logs, and comms. The leak revealed not just how China blocks sites and censors conversations (think: deep packet inspection meets overzealous keyword blacklisting), but also how those censorship tools are quietly exported to countries like Myanmar, Kazakhstan, and Ethiopia courtesy of Geedge Networks. Even Europe got in on the act with some local firms linked to Geedge—so, next time your cat meme is missing, you know who to blame. For anyone tracking authoritarian tech, this data drop is a goldmine; some experts on Reddit are already dissecting it for vulnerabilities that could turbocharge VPNs or, for the less legal crowd, uncover backdoors perfect for exploitation.

While China’s firewall code was leaking, their Ministry of Commerce went full-on trade war, launching probes into America’s analog chips—just days before Scott Bessent and He Lifeng squared off in Madrid. Beijing’s two-pronged attack aims for anti-dumping on interface ICs (look out, Texas Instruments) and a big “stop discriminating!” banner over US chip policies. At the heart of it: TikTok’s fate, chip bans, and whether semiconductor rivalry replaces chess as the world’s most passive-aggressive competition.

Meanwhile in the US, cybersecurity policy is flirting with the dark side. The “Scam Farms Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025” brings back privateering—yep, legal hacking pirates—as a way to hit Chinese state actors. Sandra Joyce at Google’s Threat Intelligence Group announced a new “disruption unit” set to hack back, moving us from defense to offense. Not everyone’s thrilled—experts like Dick Wilkinson say coordinating digital pirates is like herding cats with quantum physics degrees.

On the threat front, the FBI has been busy flagging Chinese-tied groups UNC6040 and UNC6395 for data theft campaigns targeting US Salesforce platforms, while Bitdefender published details on a fileless malware “EggStreme” deployed by a China-based APT against Philippine military systems. These attacks use multi-stage toolsets with DLL sideloading for ultra-stealthy espionage. Also, Jamf Threat Labs exposed the new CHILLYHELL macOS backdoor and ZynorRAT RAT, both modular and cross-platform. Danger: not just Windows, folks!

China’s standards regulators weighed in too, with new mandates for labeling AI-generated content and real cyberattack reporting guidelines, aiming to control the information ecosystem and mitigate fraud. Synthetic content must now sport a digital nametag, while incident responders have clearer rules for reporting—expect sharper attribution and maybe faster public alerts.

What do the pros recommend? Global experts still swear by cutting attack surfaces: enforce “deny by default,” multi-factor authentication, strict application controls, nix those Office macros, and monitor for unusual sideloaders. On the geo-cyber stage, awareness and agility remain the top defenses—plus regular check-ins to make sure your firewall isn’t accidentally streaming its secrets to the world.

That’s all from Ting on Digital Dragon Watch. Thanks for tuning in, and remember: subscribe for your weekly dose of cyber drama. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

Ting here, and you are tuned in to Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert. If you blinked this week, you missed another wave of China-infused cyber intrigue. So buckle up: here’s what hit the wires, what rattled the routers, and what the wonks say we should do next.

Let’s start with the headline act—Salt Typhoon. This isn’t your garden variety phishing expedition. According to CYFIRMA, Salt Typhoon’s campaign, freshly outed by a joint US-UK-Canada and friends statement, was so wide-reaching it may have swept up data on nearly every American. Sectors nailed? Telecoms, transport, lodging, government, military, you name it. The technical playbook here included sophisticated lateral movement and long-term infiltration of core infrastructure networks. This wasn’t just about stealing—think surveillance, pre-positioning for disruption, and good old-fashioned intelligence collection. Salt Typhoon isn’t acting solo, either; the campaign is linked to Chinese tech firms allegedly tied tight with the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of State Security.

While that was sending critical infrastructure operators digging through their logs, APT41 pulled a page out of the social engineering playbook. During the July trade talks, Chinese hackers impersonated a China committee chair to slip malware into inboxes at US law firms, trade bodies, and government agencies. Their goal? Trade negotiation advantage via dirty digital tricks. There’s still no word if anyone clicked, but the malware toolkit was textbook APT41, infamous for blending espionage with a dash of cybercrime.

Meanwhile, the US government is on edge. Congress is scrambling to reauthorize the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) of 2015, as the backbone of how industry and Uncle Sam swap threat data is set to expire at the end of September. According to Just Security, letting CISA 2015 sunset now, just as Chinese espionage shifts from economic mayhem to potentially infrastructure sabotage—think Volt Typhoon burrowing into US energy networks—could send the US back to the pre-2015 dark ages of finger-pointing and siloed threat intelligence. You want attacks like SolarWinds, OPM, and Anthem on repeat? Because that's how you get them.

On the flip side, China’s Foreign Ministry claims it’s the aggrieved party, announcing at a press conference that over 600 APT attacks targeted their institutions in 2024. They’re pointing fingers at the US and its allies, alleging that attacks routed through hubs like Germany, Singapore, and the Netherlands. Now, blame games aside, both sides are ramping up defensive frameworks—China just rolled out new PBOC Measures requiring rapid incident reporting and tougher data controls in banking and finance, aiming to set a national standard for cyber hygiene.

For those running digital defenses in the West, here’s expert advice: close those visibility gaps. Prioritize monitoring of telecom, energy, and transport networks. Double down on email verification—APT41 loves the “reply all” method of cybercrime. And make sure your organization is sharing and receiving up-to-date threat intel, ideally with legal protection in place to foster real cooperation.

Thank you for tuning in to Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert. If your network’s still up, subscribe for more. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

Listeners, Ting here and we’re dropping right into this week’s Digital Dragon Watch—because cyber threats wait for no one and China’s been making plenty of noise. Over the past seven days, the most pressing headline comes courtesy of the notorious Chinese state-sponsored APT41 group. According to an advisory from the House Select Committee on China, APT41 has been orchestrating aggressive phishing campaigns targeting anyone influencing US-China trade policy. That means US trade officials, targeted government agencies, DC law firms, and even think tanks found themselves in the crosshairs as trade negotiations ramped up. What’s spicy? The hackers used sophisticated impersonation techniques, posing as US Congressman John Moolenaar in emails to dupe trusted contacts—tactic straight out of the cyber-espionage playbook. Google’s Mandiant team confirmed that the campaign deployed new forms of spyware, capable of snagging sensitive docs and intelligence if unleashed.

Timing was no coincidence. This offensive came just days before high-level trade talks in Sweden and fits squarely within a pattern: every time US-China relations get tense, so do digital assaults. Analysts flag that APT41’s approach mixes classic phishing with credential theft, fake file-sharing lures, and a dash of cloud exploitation to cover their tracks. The malware toolbox keeps evolving, as seen in the recent “EggStreme” fileless toolkit used against the Philippine military and other Asia-Pacific targets. Details from Bitdefender show EggStreme doesn’t even leave a mark on disk—payloads stay in memory and communications run over encrypted gRPC, making them a nightmare to detect and boot out.

But China’s ambitions aren’t limited to ones and zeroes—last week’s military parade in Beijing showcased not just glitzy hardware but three entire formations dedicated to information warfare, network disruption, and electronic countermeasures. The message: China’s prepared to fight and win in both physical and cyber realms. While China’s government denies it all, these digital salvos aren’t fooling anyone on this side of the firewall.

US responses have grown much sharper. National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross and senior NSC official Alexei Bulazel both went public, promising more than just “defense.” They’re calling for a “whole-of-nation” counterstrategy—think new offensive posture, closer public-private threat intel sharing, and the possible reauthorization of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act to modernize and harden federal networks. Cairncross explicitly cited the threat from Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon—direct nods to major recent attacks traced back across the Great Firewall. Both officials know it’s time to punch back and have signaled that offensive cyber is now fair game, though only as part of a calculated strategy.

Experts recommend that at every level—from boardrooms to tech rooms—we double down on phishing defense, multi-factor authentication, and continuous monitoring of high-value targets. Oh, and if you think AI isn’t in the mix, think again: impersonation schemes now regularly use synthetic voices and deepfake credentials to hook their prey.

Alright, cyber enthusiasts, that’s your digital dispatch for this week. Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an alert. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

Listeners, Ting here with your fresh-pressed Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert—and let’s skip the chit-chat because this week has been a techie thriller.

Right out of the gate, the big one is the Salt Typhoon operation. This isn’t some script kiddie running Python scans from a basement—Salt Typhoon, attributed by US and international investigators to Chinese state apparatus, pulled off a years-long campaign targeting over 80 countries, possibly hoovering up data linked to almost every American. The twist? This hack was deeper than we thought, with telecoms and big brand companies as prime targets. According to Stan Stahl’s Substack, stolen data could be a gold mine for Beijing, lighting up trails to politicians, spies, and basically anyone with influence. US officials say China’s attack game is now just as fierce as America’s.

Let’s talk new attack vectors: APT41—the Advanced Persistent Threat group with a reputation for Hollywood-grade subterfuge—unleashed a fake email blast posing as Representative John Moolenaar, who, fun fact, chairs the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the US and China. Picture staffers prepping for tense trade talks in Sweden, then suddenly they receive an urgent “review this draft legislation” email from their own chairman… except it’s a trap. The attached document was laced with malware designed to open every bit of internal comms to Chinese intel eyes. Reuters and The Wall Street Journal confirm the feds, including the FBI and Capitol Police, are on the case, while the Chinese embassy, sticking to the script, denies everything and blames the chaotic nature of the global web.

This isn’t a solo act, and it’s not just the federal government lacing up its gloves either. According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Texas launched a “hostile foreign adversaries unit” to actively counter foreign digital meddling, especially China. Their toolkit includes requirements for universities to report foreign gifts and revamped training programs for recognizing digital propaganda—the sort of state-level move we might see replicated elsewhere if the feds can’t keep up.

From the international angle, the Czech National Cyber and Information Security Agency just put critical infrastructure operators on high alert over rising risks from Chinese data transfers. This follows a confirmed attack on their Ministry of Foreign Affairs traced to APT31—another notorious Chinese state-linked hacking crew. Their specialty? Exploiting industrial control systems—think power, water, and transport.

Now, defense isn’t standing still. Chinese authorities themselves are scrambling to revise their own Cybersecurity Law, pushing for stiffer penalties on anyone letting data slip. We’re talking million-yuan fines and even revocation of business licenses. This fits with Beijing’s push for “cybersecurity self-reliance,” making their own networks less porous, just as Western entities try to up their defenses. On the Western side, cyber experts urge companies to nail basic hygiene—multi-factor authentication, rapid patch cycles, and continuous employee education on spear-phishing. CISA, the NSA, and partners are all rolling out regular threat intelligence updates with new IoCs—indicators of compromise—to help organizations stay ahead.

All in all, the battlefront is shifting fast; nation-state actors are using criminal proxies and private industry as cyber-toxic force multipliers, blurring the line between hacktivism and official espionage. My advice? Don’t open that suspicious “urgent review” email, and never assume your comms are safe.

Thanks for tuning in to Digital Dragon Watch with Ting. Don’t forget to subscribe—and hey, safeguard your secrets. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

This is Ting, your cybertastic scout reporting in for Digital Dragon Watch—and wow, the last seven days have been a buffet of cyber drama starring China, its hacking hit squads, and the US defense crowd scrambling for moves. Junk the slow intro, let’s get to the good parts:

Leading this week’s cyber parade is Salt Typhoon—Microsoft’s favorite nickname for this particularly gutsy, state-backed group out of China’s Ministry of State Security. The FBI said just last month that Salt Typhoon has hacked over 200 companies across 80 countries, from US telecoms to hotels to a Canadian telecom, and most recently struck Viasat, exploiting kernel-mode Windows rootkits like Demodex. That’s not just data exfiltration, that’s full-on espionage with anti-forensic and anti-analysis techniques that’d make a Hollywood A-lister jealous. Former NSA analyst Terry Dunlap calls them a “component of China’s 100-Year Strategy.” If that doesn’t sound ominous, I don’t know what does.

And if you thought Salt Typhoon was a one-man band, cue the Google Threat Intelligence team’s latest blog about UNC6384—aka Mustang Panda, aka TEMP.Hex—hijacking web traffic and deploying heavily obfuscated malware like SOGU.SEC against Southeast Asian diplomats. These actors aren’t just lurking at the cyber fringes; they’re right up in the government and telecom sectors where the data glitters most.

The US government is not taking this snooze-worthy. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has been alerting critical infrastructure orgs after Microsoft revealed Chinese state actors exploiting SharePoint vulnerabilities. And it’s not just CISA in the alarm club—this week a coalition including Five Eyes, plus Germany, Italy, Japan, and more, publicly called out three Chinese firms (Sichuan Juxinhe, Beijing Huanyu Tianqiong, Sichuan Zhixin Ruijie) for hands-on collaboration with the PLA and the Ministry of State Security. The US Treasury even slapped sanctions on Juxinhe for its ties to Salt Typhoon and snacking on Americans’ call records.

For sector targeting, you’re seeing everything from telecom to the trade game. The Wall Street Journal dropped news about a phishing campaign using bogus emails from Rep. John Moolenaar loaded with APT41-crafted malware, all designed to scoop insights into US-China trade talks. FBI and Capitol Police are on the hunt, no stone unturned.

Across the pond, the Czech Republic’s National Cyber and Information Security Agency just dialed up its “China risk” rating to high, warning critical infrastructure folks to avoid Chinese devices and cloud services—think IP cameras, EVs, even medical gear. They’ve confirmed direct APT31 action against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If you’re Euro-based and running Chinese tech anywhere near sensitive data, time to rethink your product choices ASAP.

Expert consensus? The recommendation list is packed: implement zero-trust security architectures, especially if you operate in energy, healthcare, government, or finance. Stay frosty for code injection attacks, use AI-driven threat detection, and never, ever ignore those boring-looking policy advisories. As the Picus Blue Report notes, password cracking exposure doubled this year—46% of environments weren’t ready.

The bottom line: Chinese cyber teams are well-funded, well-organized, and in hybrid mode, using every tool, channel, and disguise in the book. If you’re plugged in, stay patched, analyze your supply chain, and don’t leave your defenses in “maintenance mode.”

Thanks for tuning in, friends—from trade talks to telecom trenches, I’m Ting, and this was Digital Dragon Watch. Subscribe to stay sharp on the digital frontier. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

Ting here with your Digital Dragon Watch, and trust me, the dragons have been anything but subtle this week. Let’s get straight into the world’s worst-kept secret: the Salt Typhoon mega-hack, the most ambitious China-backed cyber operation ever seen. Apparently, if you have a pulse and a U.S.-issued phone, odds are your data’s already made the one-way trip to Beijing. And yes, that includes Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance—their campaign phones reportedly pinched by Salt Typhoon’s tentacles, which investigators linked last week not just to China’s intelligence agencies, but also to at least three well-connected Chinese cybersecurity companies. The joint statement from the FBI, CISA, and no less than twenty international security services puts it bluntly: this thing hit telecoms, transportation, lodging, and even military infrastructure in more than 80 countries.

The new twist? These hackers, running software nastier than a Sichuan hotpot, aren’t satisfied with intellectual property or state secrets anymore. According to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, their focus has expanded to backbone routers, including those in hotels, airports—anywhere with a juicy data stream. By leveraging provider-edge and customer-edge routers, and weaponizing compromised trusted connections, they’ve managed to burrow deep into critical infrastructure’s underbelly and establish persistent access, the kind that’s practically a couch-surfing squatter in your network.

This isn’t just a spying op. Salt Typhoon now flaunts the ability to disrupt critical utilities—think power grids and water systems—raising the stakes for disruption just when you need everything running. From Axios to The Times of India, security experts warn, “You don’t have to be a politician to make the list. If you own data, serve customers, or run services—congrats, you’re invited.”

The US government isn’t taking this lying down. CISA, under heavy political fire, is ramping up its intelligence-driven defense strategies and improving cross-sector information sharing. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is playing whack-a-mole after new revelations that Microsoft relied on China-based engineers to support SharePoint for federal agencies—including parts of Defense and Energy. Microsoft rushed out a patch in July after Chinese hackers were spotted exploiting SharePoint’s vulnerabilities, but attackers sidestepped the fix until Redmond doubled down with a stronger update.

Congress is now moving on fresh legislation to clamp down on any Pentagon-funded research with flagged Chinese entities, after an investigation found 1,400 papers—across AI, semiconductors, and hypersonics—coauthored with scientists affiliated with China’s defense sector.

So, what should everyday organizations be doing? Experts recommend treating every network edge, device, and login like it’s already compromised. Think zero trust, continuous monitoring, aggressive patching, and threat intelligence-sharing with federal partners. And seriously, if your router is older than TikTok, just recycle it.

That’s your rapid-fire round-up in the China cyber clash—thanks for tuning in to Digital Dragon Watch. Don't forget to subscribe, because in cyberspace, you want to be first to know, not last to patch. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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