This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

Let’s cut straight to the chase—if you’ve been laser-focused on TikTok drama instead of network traffic, you might’ve missed what’s probably the biggest cyber headline of the year: Salt Typhoon and its partner in digital crime, Volt Typhoon. This week, Chinese cyber operatives have raised the stakes in America’s game of digital poker, laying bare not just their hand, but their intent to own the whole table. Imagine waking up and knowing Beijing’s hackers were waltzing through telecom networks, utility grids, hotel chains—even presidential communications. Not just an episode of Mr. Robot, but breaking news. I’m Ting, your friendly cyber oracle, here to decode the Dragon’s Code.

Start with Salt Typhoon—described by US officials as China's most ambitious and aggressive cyberespionage to date. We’re talking years of sustained, coordinated attacks breaching not only American telecoms—think AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile—but also transportation and lodging networks. According to Cynthia Kaiser, who ran point at FBI cyber, this breach is so vast that it likely reached every US citizen, including President Trump and VP Vance. All those “private” calls, texts, and location records—now fodder for Chinese intelligence. It’s not just who called whom, but the ability to track dissidents, military officials, and activists worldwide. Salt Typhoon isn’t that clever malware in your spam folder—it’s all about taking over the backbone of global communications.

But that’s Act One. Volt Typhoon took aim at Guam’s military, power, port, and water networks—operational tech, the nuts and bolts of American defense infrastructure. Their goal: to preposition inside systems so, should tensions escalate over Taiwan, they could flip a switch and black out critical assets. Jen Easterly at CISA warned Congress: “Volt Typhoon wants panic—they want our lights out and our defenders in the dark.” Meanwhile, Google’s cyber wizards traced the attack straight to Chinese companies: Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology, Huanyu Tianqiong, Zhixin Ruijie—all feeding their digital muscle to units in the PLA and China’s Ministry of State Security.

And get this—methodology was classic APT (advanced persistent threat) meets brute persistence. They didn’t just exploit zero-day vulnerabilities; they layered backdoors in network hardware, logged credentials, slipped quietly into law enforcement directives, and embedded destructive code in vital OT systems. Once discovered, these hackers didn’t hightail it. They dug in, daring defenders to kick them out. Even as their presence became public, they stayed, leveraging contractor firms that muddied the attribution waters.

Defensive moves were swift: CISA, FBI, and western partners shouted global alerts, urging patching of known exploits, logging system events, and tightening network edge security. The Five Eyes and European allies teamed up in rare coordination. More than that, they pushed for a resilience-first mindset: the new gospel is “assume breach.” Rob Joyce, ex-NSA, told Congress this week, “Stop chasing pristine networks—focus on recovery, minimize disruption, limit adversarial movement.”

Lessons? Complacency is fatal. Nation-state cyber threats aren’t a distant storm; they’re at our doorstep. Critical infrastructure has to inventory every asset—knowing every inch of your digital estate is non-negotiable. Public-private sharing is crucial; Congress is being urged to extend the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act so companies won’t get cold feet when passing along threat intel.

So listeners, if you hear the phrase “just another hack,” remember—when the dragon comes for your data and your grid, ordinary isn’t in their vocabulary. Federal networks, water supplies, hotel chains—all are fair game. Thank you for tuning in—hit subscribe to get ahead of the attackers. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

Listeners, Ting here—your cyber sleuth and code whisperer! Skip the drama, straight to the digital fireworks: in just the past week, the United States witnessed one of the most sophisticated flurries of Chinese cyber operations targeting infrastructure that I've ever had the mixed pleasure of dissecting.

First off, the big baddies behind these latest attacks are names you now know by heart: Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon. In line with Beijing’s 14th Five-Year Plan—wrapping up this very year, mind you—these crews have been all about digging in discreetly rather than blowing things up. Their M.O.? Zero-day exploits—brand new vulnerabilities nobody else has patched yet—launched quietly into utility companies, telecom networks, and even state transportation hubs, making themselves nearly invisible. It’s like the cyber version of being a ninja squid, smearing ink, then slipping away.

According to Microsoft, three distinct hacking clusters tied to China hammered away at on-premises SharePoint servers. These hackers didn’t just scrape data—they established long-term access, sometimes by creating admin-level backdoors right under IT’s nose. Then, they used lateral movement: think worming from one vulnerable device, like an edge router, right through to backbone routers and then deeper into organizations’ operational technology. They exploited common configuration weaknesses—default passwords, weak credential storage—then covered tracks using port mirroring and route manipulation. The result? Silent, privileged access to the digital control rooms of energy grids, telecom, and municipal services.

Attribution for these ops gets sticky but is built on forensic breadcrumbs: command-and-control server logs, shared malware signatures linked to Salt Typhoon’s previous reconnaissance efforts, and overlapping infrastructure with historic PLA-backed campaigns, as reported by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Cyble, for one, cites global hits across telecom, government, and even unsuspecting universities.

The response? A mad scramble. CISA, despite recent turbulence and staff losses following Director Tulsi Gabbard’s infamous ODNI downsizing, led a rapid-fire threat-sharing campaign. But with new resources under threat and state funding wobbly, as Rep. Andy Ogles pointed out this week, agencies at the local level are struggling to keep up. Some states, like Texas, are rolling out their own “hostile foreign adversary” units, but even NSA veteran Tony Sager doubts states can slug toe-to-toe with nation-state ops unless Uncle Sam seriously steps up.

Defensive wins this week included mass password resets, emergency patching drives for core routers and SharePoint servers, and the use of secure AI-enhanced detection for anomaly spotting. But experts like Lauren Goldman—former CTIIC analysis chief—warn that state readiness remains uneven, especially as key intelligence programs face federal scalebacks at the worst imaginable moment.

The lessons? Assume China is in your system and play like you're already compromised. Cyber pros urge holistic defense: tighter federal-state collaboration, fast intelligence sharing, and regular red-team drills simulating the latest TTPs. Above all—never, ever, use “cisco/cisco” as a password. Just don’t.

Listeners, if you want your infrastructure to stay out of Dragon’s Code, vigilance isn’t a luxury—it’s your baseline. Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to subscribe, and remember: This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

Alright listeners, Ting here—your favorite cyber sleuth with just the right mix of VPN and spicy hotpot. Let’s get right to it: the past few days have been a master class in digital drama, with Chinese hacker group Salt Typhoon running the country’s equivalent of a cyber hurricane across the U.S. infrastructure—powered by none other than Beijing’s own intelligence apparatus, according to joint reports from the National Security Agency, FBI, and pretty much every Western cyber agency that owns a suit.

Salt Typhoon’s latest campaign isn’t just a rerun of last year’s telco snooping—they took things full Bond villain by zeroing in on America’s backbone routers, provider edge, and even customer edge routers. They wormed in through security vulnerabilities, often in edge devices like routers and switches, and once inside, let’s just say they didn’t pack lightly. According to Brett Leatherman at the FBI Cyber Division, their tactics allowed real-time interception of calls, texts, and even the geo-location of millions of subscribers. Major victims reportedly include AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, and—brace yourselves—these intrusions may have compromised communications linked to recent presidential candidates.

Salt Typhoon isn’t acting alone. They farmed out tech support to Chinese contractors like Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology and Beijing Huanyu Tianqiong Information Technology—firms named and shamed in Treasury sanctions earlier this year. Microsoft even took the rare step of shifting Pentagon cloud contracts away from Chinese engineers—a gutsy move, but necessary when dealing with adversaries known for persistent, state-aligned espionage.

How do we know Beijing is pulling the strings? Not only is the scale breathtaking—over 80 countries hit and 200-plus U.S. companies breached—but the tradecraft screams government work. These hackers didn’t just smash and grab; they installed digital trapdoors and altered router OS code to build a long-term base, capable of future sabotage. Allied intelligence from the UK, Germany, Japan, and nearly a dozen more agencies back up the attribution, emphasizing just how united—and worried—the West is.

Big cyber advisory meetings, like the one chaired this week by Oh Hyun-joo in Korea’s National Security Office, focused on shoring up defenses against AI-driven threats and tightening public-private partnerships. U.S. agencies pushed out urgent bulletins advocating basic hygiene—patch those routers, activate multi-factor, and log every suspicious blip. But here’s the rub: experts like Annie Fixler at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies warn that chasing Salt Typhoon off your network is like trying to shake glitter out of a carpet. Their persistence and lateral movement skills mean they’re often already in deeper than you think.

What have we learned? First, infrastructure must be monitored and micro-segmented. Second, foreign dependencies—even at the engineer level—have become risks too great to ignore. And third, joint intelligence operations are now the only way to keep up; no single agency can track state-sponsored operations of this scale alone.

That’s all for this week on Dragon’s Code: America Under Cyber Siege. You survived the siege with me, Ting. Thanks for tuning in, don’t forget to subscribe for the next zero-day drop.

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This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

Here’s Ting with your emergency update on Dragon’s Code: America Under Cyber Siege, and wow, folks, it’s been a high-voltage week. If you thought last year’s Salt Typhoon campaign was scary, the latest bulletins from FBI assistant director Brett Leatherman say the situation is even more mind-blowing now. Salt Typhoon, which most experts pin directly to Chinese state-sponsored actors, has moved from “surreptitious eavesdropper” to “global saboteur.” They hit not just US telecoms but now reportedly breached companies spanning 80 countries. The targets? Critical US infrastructure: telecommunication carriers, energy grids, and even municipal water facilities. As Senator Richard Blumenthal bluntly put it, the depth of this operation is “absolutely mind-boggling.”

Let’s get spicy about how they pulled this off. We’re talking strategic, patient infiltrations—think living-off-the-land, advanced malware implants, and weaponizing abandoned update servers. The Western Illinois University Cybersecurity Center just detailed a textbook example this week: stolen Taiwanese software update infrastructure used to push backdoors like C6DOOR and GTELAM that then burrowed into networks under the nose of most security tools. Meanwhile, Google Threat Intelligence spotted China-linked group UNC6384 hijacking traffic destined for diplomats and redirecting them to watering hole attacks—basically, someone swapped out the water cooler for a malware dispenser. Clever and not at all friendly.

Their method playbook this week included targeted phishing, exploiting zero-days in Citrix NetScaler ADCs, and an authentication bypass in Passwordstate. CISA wasn’t amused—expect emergency directives ordering federal agencies to scan their configs and patch at warp speed. Google has been pinging Southeast Asian embassies about phishing emails so convincing they’d fool your favorite auntie, exploiting not just old Microsoft server flaws but even GenAI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini for covert C2 tunneling and data exfiltration. So if you thought your chatbot was just for workplace trivia games, think again.

How do the pros know it’s Beijing signaling these attacks? Attribution pivots on IP overlaps, custom malware used in previous known ops, and even Mandarin-language debugging artifacts left on compromised servers, according to Mandiant and the NSA. But it’s not just the tech trail—experts from ESET and Shadowserver Foundation are tracking step changes in Chinese objectives, moving from “just economic espionage” to political manipulation and disruption readiness.

So, what’s being deployed in defense? Federal Communications Commission revamped submarine cable licensing rules, while NIST fast-tracked new frameworks for genomic and unmanned aerial system cybersecurity. CISA is ordering patches and emergency playbooks. But, as Jiwon Ma from FDD bluntly observed, fragmented federal and state guidance is leaving pipes, cables, and even water sectors just a bit exposed.

Best lesson learned? Assume compromise, fortify weakest links, refresh those incident playbooks, and, please, stop clicking weird email links! Cybersecurity’s new frontline isn’t just firewalls—it’s the lunchroom, the browser extension, the sleepy SaaS stack that nobody updated. For the latest, thank Sean Cairncross, the new National Cyber Director, who’s expected to play cyber quarterback for this roaring new offense.

Thanks for tuning in, listeners. Remember to subscribe so Ting keeps you a byte ahead of the Dragon—or at least gives you the password hygiene pep talk nobody asked for. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

Today feels like we woke up inside Dragon’s Code: America Under Cyber Siege, and trust me, if you’re thinking this sounds dramatic, allow Ting to enlighten you! The past days have been a cyber thriller, starring Salt Typhoon—yep, that’s the codename for a Chinese team so bold, not even your grandma’s landline was safe. Salt Typhoon hit nearly every American, according to Michael Machtinger from the FBI. Picture this: years-long breaches against telecoms like AT&T and Verizon, starting back in 2019, and it took until last fall for the US to catch up.

These attacks weren’t picky. Your commute, your water supply, your government emails—Salt Typhoon liked to collect them all. Experts say the hackers geo-located phones, monitored internet traffic, and sometimes even recorded calls. The FBI claims President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance made their cameo as victims. Salt Typhoon’s toolbox? Modified backbone routers, lateral moves into trusted networks, and persistence that would make a bad Tinder match jealous. Dr. Richard Horne at the UK National Cyber Security Centre says these hackers exploited known vulnerabilities—stuff that could’ve been fixed with timely updates!

Now don’t think this was a lone wolf gig. Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology, Beijing Huanyu Tianqiong Information Technology, and Sichuan Zhixin Ruijie Network Technology—three Chinese companies—played lead roles, providing cyber products to China’s Ministry of State Security and the People’s Liberation Army. The FBI’s Jason Bilnoski told CyberScoop that China’s outsourcing to private vendors was actually a weakness. The unregulated web allowed American investigators to trace attacks and expose methods. Let’s hear it for the CCP’s questionable contractor management!

So what are our cyber defenders doing after the Salt Typhoon bomb dropped? Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth hastily shut down Microsoft’s Chinese digital escort program, where Chinese nationals coded for US military cloud systems. Cue the awkward audit and Microsoft’s scramble for trust rehab. According to ProPublica, Microsoft hadn’t even mentioned its China-based engineers in security filings—whoops. The Pentagon now demands audits of all defense software vendors and, basically, no more foreign coders writing sensitive code.

Defensive moves across the board: hunt for malicious network activity, patch those vulnerabilities yesterday, monitor edge routers, and always check for indicators of compromise. The NSA, CISA, and an alphabet soup of agencies worldwide rushed out a joint Cybersecurity Advisory, shouting “patch your stuff!” at anyone willing to listen. Yet, Jack Burnham from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies warns that big tech needs tough security standards to avoid another trainwreck.

Lessons? Never assume you're too boring to be a target. Patching and active network monitoring are non-negotiable. And the big one—never outsource your digital skeleton key to a competitor! The story’s still evolving, but for now, cyber experts want everyone hunting threats and prepping for the next wave.

Thanks for tuning in to Dragon’s Code with Ting—subscribe, stay patched, and keep your routers close. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

All right, listeners, Ting here, diving straight into this week’s most jaw-dropping installment of Dragon’s Code: America Under Cyber Siege. Let’s skip the pleasantries and jack in—because the cyber ops unleashed by Chinese state-backed groups in the past few days have redefined ‘sophisticated.’

Picture this: the Salt Typhoon group, previously infamous for that globe-spanning telecom espionage campaign, is back and now burrowing even deeper into America’s digital veins. The new joint advisory from CISA, the NSA, the FBI, and partners from the UK and Japan lands today—think of it as a blockbuster alert, summoning every critical infrastructure defender to battle stations. According to Assistant Director Brett Leatherman at the FBI, Salt Typhoon isn’t stopping at telecom—government, transportation, military, even hotel networks are all fair game.

The attack methodologies read like a red team’s fantasy. Salt Typhoon and cohorts—OPERATOR PANDA, RedMike, GhostEmperor, and UNC5807—are exploiting ancient router vulnerabilities, some going back to 2018, in hardware nobody really thought to patch. They modify the firmware of provider edge routers, giving themselves persistence so long-term you’d think they’d left a lease agreement. Once entrenched, they tap into the lawful intercept systems where, yes, even wiretap requests meant for surveilling spies are now being surveilled by spies. That, my friends, is some cyber-Inception.

Attribution this week has become embarrassingly specific. The US, UK, Germany, and Japan have openly accused three Chinese tech firms—Sichuan Juxinhe, Beijing Huanyu Tianqiong, and Sichuan Zhixin Ruijie—of being arms of the Ministry of State Security and the People’s Liberation Army, not just contractors but strategic partners in espionage. Madhu Gottumukkala at CISA put it bluntly: this is a deliberate, sustained campaign to keep Chinese actors lurking undetected in America’s most vital digital corridors.

Defensive measures are getting sharper. CISA’s guidance: patch those Known Exploited Vulnerabilities, log everything centrally, and, if you run major infrastructure, start threat hunting yesterday. Sandra Joyce from Google’s Threat Intelligence Group dropped a tantalizing hint: Google’s new cyber “disruption unit” is prepping to flip the script from passive defense to active takedowns and legal disruption. Upping the ante, some U.S. officials are debating offensive cyber moves—not just playing goalie, but charging the field.

But what are the lessons? Marc Rogers, the telecom security veteran, put it best: “We need to move faster.” Too many organizations missed patches, under-invested in zero-trust, and let legacy infrastructure become an open door. The DHS and CISA count a 65% jump in ransomware targeting government agencies—ransom threats have become table stakes, but espionage is the main act.

To every organization listening in: implement those advisories, hunt for the invisible, and consider that if you don’t know where Salt Typhoon is in your system, they probably are. The cyber battlefield just went global, and it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

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This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

The last 72 hours have felt less like a tech sprint and more like a cyber-Peking opera—high drama, precision timing, and the dragon’s shadow looming over America’s core systems. Ting here, your favorite cyber sleuth with a little spice, and I promise you, what’s sizzling in the world of Dragon’s Code: America Under Cyber Siege would make even Confucius reboot his firewall.

Let’s not waste time—this week’s most sophisticated Chinese cyber operations hit like a triple espresso. Two big names: Genesis Panda and Glacial Panda, both backed by the Chinese state, leveled a relentless campaign against US cloud infrastructure and telecom providers. The attack’s methodology? Picture a full-court press of cloud credential theft, lateral movement, and stealthy persistence. Genesis Panda, for example, leveraged zero-day exploits to ghost into cloud management consoles, while Glacial Panda adopted advanced proxy techniques—Trojan proxy protocol, masquerading their traffic as HTTPS to dodge detection. Their command-and-control networks hopped across commercial proxy providers, including the newly rebranded WgetCloud, known for offering stable VPN subscriptions tailor-made for evasion.

What got hit? Infrastructure so critical that even a hiccup can slow freight, scramble airlines, and blind communications. The big bullseye: cloud platforms used by power grids, rail control networks, and emergency systems. Think Amazon Web Services nodes and telecom backbone APIs. There was also evidence a few satellite links were probed—an echo of warnings from Claudia Turner at Space Force, who cautioned that space is now as contested as any server farm in Cupertino.

How do we know it’s China? Attribution rests on digital fingerprints—SSL certificates, node configurations, payment patterns, and even base64-encoded Trojan client subscription URLs traced to Chinese banking and crypto flows. Spur Security flagged over a thousand similar IPs, mostly China-located, all serving identical certificates, supporting OSINT analysts’ conclusion that this wasn’t a basement operation but a geostrategic campaign with serious scale.

Defensive measures? Let’s just say the alarm bells went off faster than you can say “Volt Typhoon”—the notorious PLA-affiliated APT referenced in the new Congressional security bill H.R. 2659, which is poised to launch an interagency task force to counter these state-backed attackers. US companies scrambled to catalogue digital assets, patch vulnerabilities, and roll out AI-driven anomaly detection, but as Harvard’s Ben Murphy writes, trailing-edge organizations—those slow to upgrade or automate—remain ripe for exploitation. On the government side, the White House raced to coordinate response playbooks with CISA, prioritizing multifactor authentication and threat intelligence sharing, although many experts, including Senator Ron Wyden, lambasted the federal courts for inertia and failing to enforce mandatory cyber hygiene.

Lessons learned? The US must keep pace with AI-powered attack tools—because advances in offensive AI reduce the cost and skill required to launch devastating exploits, but also offer defenders smarter, faster detection if deployed well. Enterprise defenders should track patch deployment time, integrate continuous AI review, and revisit vendor cyber track records. For the government, incentivizing the modernization of defensive tech and subsidizing security services for vulnerable firms is, frankly, non-negotiable.

So, listeners, America’s cyber siege by China is real, escalating, and evolving right under our fingertips. Thank you for tuning in and don’t forget to subscribe for your weekly dose of Dragon’s Code. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

Listeners, it’s Ting here—your friendly cyber dragon spotter—with the latest scoop on Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege. Buckle up, because this week the Silk Typhoon APT, China’s fast-evolving cyber army (also known as Murky Panda to the CrowdStrike crowd), turned up the heat under US infrastructure. Think coordinated campaigns aimed at the juicy middle: energy grids, telecom switches, and municipal support software.

Let’s jump right into the juicy bits. The Silk Typhoon crew’s calling card? A mix of zero-days and n-days—those are previously disclosed vulnerabilities but not yet patched in many targets. Their most eye-catching feat was leveraging CVE-2025-43300, a zero-day that hit Apple’s iOS, iPadOS, and macOS platforms. This let operators slip into devices used by infrastructure engineers to access sensitive control centers. CISA’s Kevin Mandia described the exploit as “scalpel-precise,” letting attackers establish persistent backdoors without tripping standard alerts—like an elegant ghost walking through Tripwire lasers at the Louvre.

On the municipal front, hundreds of US cities that use Workhorse Software’s accounting apps woke up to panic when CERT/CC disclosed serious data exposure flaws. Sting like a dragon: this after-the-fact disclosure means these bugs might’ve already served as Silk Typhoon’s foothold, letting attackers pivot laterally to disrupt utility payments and even emergency response comms. That’s the thing with Chinese APTs—they savor indirect entry points.

Attribution came fast, thanks to overlapping malware code and unmistakable command-and-control infrastructure. Analysts at Microsoft and CrowdStrike noticed the traffic patterns matched Silk Typhoon signatures, and—icing on the forensic cake—deeper packet captures caught Mandarin operator commands that unwittingly leaked through proxy hops.

US response? The White House launched secure image rollbacks on iOS fleet devices and updated Watchtower-level monitoring over all Apple endpoints in critical sectors. At the Department of Homeland Security, Jen Easterly called for “instantaneous log aggregation and AI-aided anomaly alerts,” a level-up few local utilities were truly prepared for. The FBI even hosted an urgent operator workshop in D.C.—because when Chinese hackers are testing delay-coded payloads and destructive backdoors (hello, Hakai malware, anyone?), there’s no time for bureaucracy.

Cybersecurity experts like Katie Moussouris emphasized that Silk Typhoon’s real art is camouflage—using legitimate tools and time-delayed triggers to cause damage when defenders are off-guard. Her advice for next week: stop treating patch management like spring cleaning and make it part of every breakfast routine.

And maybe the most important lesson hammered home by both CISA and private sector experts: never assume your VPN or OS update is actually up-to-date, and don’t let compliance lull you—active threat hunting is the name of the game. Because when it’s America vs. Dragon, nap time is over.

Thanks for riding this byte-sized blitz with me. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode of Dragon’s Code: America Under Cyber Siege. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

Listeners, Ting here! I’m hyped to dive into what’s been a wild week in America’s cyber trenches—the dragons’ code of Chinese cyber operations hitting US infrastructure. Strap in, because if you blinked, you probably missed a heap of action, zero-days, and some serious expert sass.

First off, let’s talk about this week’s rockstar: Silk Typhoon, also known by CrowdStrike as Murky Panda. Picture this: hackers popping critical zero-days, like Citrix Netscaler ADC’s CVE-2023-3519 and Commvault’s juicy CVE-2025-3928, slithering right into cloud environments, and then pivoting into downstream customer domains. Adam Meyers at CrowdStrike called it “turning identity infrastructure into a launchpad.” That’s techie for taking over just enough cloud permissions to surf sideways and fetch the good stuff from other environments. One SaaS provider’s Entra ID secret got popped, and, boom—Murky Panda piggybacked into their customers’ data. Classic supply chain compromise, and it’s got US tech companies sweating so hard their password managers have trust issues.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s SharePoint is trending for all the wrong reasons after “Linen Typhoon” and “Violet Typhoon”—yes, it’s Pokémon meets cybercrime—got called out by Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence team. They hammered two fresh zero-days (CVE-2025-53770 and CVE-2025-53771), hitting federal agencies, universities, and—wait for it—energy sector icons like the National Nuclear Security Administration. Microsoft didn’t just patch; they went DEFCON: booting Chinese partners out of their MAPP vulnerability sharing program. David Cuddy from MS says, if you’re required to report vulnerabilities to Beijing, you’re now in the penalty box.

Attribution? The government’s not mincing words. The latest Annual Threat Assessment from ODNI says China “almost certainly is capable of launching cyberattacks that could disrupt critical infrastructure services within the United States, including…rail systems.” Silk Typhoon’s favorite move is to exploit internet-facing appliances—think the routers in your office or grandma’s living room—and establish cozy little beachheads.

What’s Washington doing about it? Trump’s July AI Action Plan is all about “secure by design.” So, we got the AI Information Sharing and Analysis Center spinning up, DoD tightening its Responsible AI Toolkits, and DNI readying its AI Assurance standards. The kicker? Private sector gets official guidance on plugging AI-specific holes fast. Plus, US cyber strategy is leaning into “defend-forward”—basically, if you punch us, don’t be shocked if your command-and-control servers take a mysterious nap.

Experts say patching isn’t enough. Meyers tells us to “patch everything, patch it now,” but also monitor your cloud permissions. If you’re chilling with Entra ID, check for shady delegated access—Silk Typhoon loves that. There’s no single magic fix, only defense in depth, rapid detection, tight partnerships, and a roster of really tired SOC analysts.

Lesson learned? The dragons are crafting dazzling ops, exploiting trust as much as tech. US resilience depends on nimble AI, swift threat sharing, beefed-up supply chain hygiene, and occasionally, sending a not-so-subtle message back across the Great Firewall.

Stay hungry for updates, patch like you mean it, and tighten those permissions. Thanks for tuning in! Don’t forget to subscribe for the latest cyber intrigue. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.

Ting here, your cyber sherpa—and wow, the past week has been bonkers in Dragon’s Code: America Under Cyber Siege. Forget action movies, this is real-world hacking, with top-tier Chinese cyber adversaries unleashing sophisticated, sneaky operations against US infrastructure almost daily. Let’s break down the big hits—and the nerve-racking lessons we’re still chewing on.

Get this: according to Microsoft, three notorious China-linked hacking groups—let’s call them Volt Typhoon, Operator Panda, and Salt Typhoon—just kicked off a new campaign targeting at least seven federal agencies via Microsoft SharePoint, causing chaos for agencies handling everything from defense logistics to agricultural planning. These aren’t your typical script kiddies. Their methodology? Living off the land—using built-in network tools instead of malware—so their footprints are kept light and forensically tricky to follow. Think stealth ninjas wielding native sysadmin tools like Powershell and WMI instead of flashing swords.

The wildest revelation? Microsoft’s security plan for U.S. Defense Department classified cloud services omitted mention of China-based engineers providing maintenance. Experts like John Sherman, the former Defense CIO, called out the “digital escort” workaround—US-cleared personnel supervising foreign engineers. Sounds clever until you realize Chinese law makes zero distinction between private companies and government data grabs. According to ProPublica, engineers on Beijing’s home turf may be compelled to hand over whatever data they touch. That’s like inviting a panda into your bamboo safe and hoping it doesn’t eat—well, everything.

Attribution evidence has been strong: forensic analysis by CISA, NSA, and Azure logs point squarely at Volt Typhoon and kin, who specialize in reconnaissance and exfiltration, pinging systems that underpin national critical infrastructure—power grids, telecom routers (remember CVE-2018-0171 exploited by both Volt and Salt Typhoon!), and even water utilities. Huntress and Kroll researchers flagged ransomware disruptions in biotech firm Inotiv, but the real strategic game is infrastructure.

Defensive measures? CISA issued emergency directives—think “mandatory patch by yesterday”—and agencies have rushed to segment networks and restrict remote access. Lessons learned, per Sean Cairncross, the new national cyber director? Transparency in vendor supply chains is essential, multi-factor authentication is non-negotiable, and a national risk management framework—tailored to sector threats—is underway, thanks to Biden’s April memorandum on critical infrastructure protection.

Cybersecurity experts like Max Rogers stress that the old perimeter model is toast. You need zero trust architectures, continuous monitoring, and incident response tested by real adversaries, not just in tabletop exercises. Government officials warn that reduced federal staffing and budget cuts under President Trump might leave critical vulnerabilities unplugged and give threat actors an open door.

So, listeners, this past week’s cyber slugfest shows that when it comes to Dragon’s Code, complacency is fatal and coordination is king. Stay patched, stay vigilant.

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