This is your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

Listeners, it’s Ting with your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves—grab your cyber-coffee, let’s break down the wild ride of the past few days. If you thought October was going to quietly fade, wrong again. Let’s start with the big one: just yesterday, US steel sector darling Metal Pros announced it was hit by the Play ransomware group. Ransomware, not strictly Chinese, but here’s the twist—the initial access looks eerily similar to methods flagged in China-linked campaigns this year: think spear-phishing, exploiting unpatched servers, and—my favorite—credential stuffing straight off dark web dumps. Play’s threat to leak sensitive data puts critical US supply chains in direct harm's way and the CISA/FBI rushed emergency guidelines overnight, urging all manufacturers (not just Metal Pros’ competitors) to rip off the dusty covers and patch their public-facing systems, especially VPNs and remote management tools.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, cyber-spies from the notorious Earth Estries group—yes, those ‘persistent,’ ‘adaptable’ characters tied to Chinese state espionage—leveled up their US game again. Security experts at Brandefense are alarmed at their creative persistence tricks: Earth Estries moved beyond web shells, now slipping custom malware and leveraging DNS tunneling for covert command and control. Just this past week, their phishing lures mimicked federal research grant notifications—nothing like dangling a few million dollars in front of a scientist to get them to open a malicious attachment. The kicker? They’re no longer satisfied scooping classified documents from government inboxes, but now sniffing around US nanotech and AI startup secrets. According to sector insiders, Earth Estries’ new campaign compromised at least three research institutions through unpatched application flaws, forcing IT admins nationwide to do emergency audit drills and hunt for “living-off-the-land” techniques—those attacks using ordinary system tools to blend in.

CISA responded with a new AI-driven threat hunting playbook, taking a page from former chief Jen Easterly’s not-so-gloomy prophecy. She said this week that bad code—not hacking wizardry—is the real enabler. The People’s Liberation Army isn’t wielding strange zero-days; they’re using twenty-year-old exploits in routers and network hardware to prep for future escalations. According to her, the best defense is software built secure by design and universal adoption of memory-safe languages. She's pushing the White House’s AI Action Plan, too, mandating future federal purchases to meet security-by-default standards.

Across the pond, thirty-six hours ago, a massive smishing campaign leveraging 194,000 lookalike domains targeted US business execs and defense partners. It’s not a scattershot attack—China-linked actors are sending perfectly-crafted texts mimicking corporate communications, luring victims to credential-harvesting pages.

So here’s your defensive action rundown: Patch everything touching the internet yesterday. Audit for weird scheduled tasks, new admin users, and sneaky persistent connections, especially outbound DNS traffic. Run phishing simulations—Earth Estries loves exploiting that one overconfident click. And for any execs or researchers out there, triple-check those “urgent” emails and SMS. If it feels too good to be true, assume it's bait from Shanghai.

Potential escalation? Security folks worry that with ongoing US export controls and chip maker drama—remember the Nexperia standoff in Europe—cyber tit-for-tat is about to get nastier. Each attack probes US resilience, showing Beijing how and where critical infrastructure bends but doesn’t break. But if a campaign like the recent Metal Pros breach had hit something like the US energy grid, CISA would likely issue a Shield Up alert and emergency conference calls would light up DC.

That’s your pulse check on China’s cyber pacing. Thanks for tuning in—subscribe if you want the inside tech scoop daily. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

This is Ting, your go-to for all things China, cyber, and sneak attacks, and today—October 26, 2025—I am on Red Alert. If you thought it was a chill fall Sunday, the digital front lines beg to differ. Let me bring you inside the world of Chinese cyber operations as they unfold, and trust me, the drama is thick, the code is fresher than your morning coffee, and the stakes? Nothing less than critical infrastructure, your power grid, and a showdown fit for a John le Carré novel—if he majored in computer science.

Let’s cut to today’s most hair-raising update: yesterday, CISA and the FBI pushed out emergency alerts after HRSD.COM, a major U.S. utility provider, got hammered by the Clop ransomware gang. Why’s that spicy for a segment on China? Because Clop and Qilin—another name you’ll want on your threat bingo card—are acting like open-source mercenaries these days, mixing methods with nation-state players. U.S. threat analysts suspect backchannel cooperation with Chinese intelligence or at least parallel timing, especially since these incidents spike during tense U.S.-China faceoffs over rare earth exports and semiconductors.

Here’s the timeline for the past 72 hours: Early Friday, DeXpose threat monitors flagged surges in phishing attempts targeting U.S. defense contractors and power utilities. By Friday night, Qilin’s ransomware—as “Ransomware-as-a-Service”—was clocked smashing 100 new victims this October alone, many in health care, manufacturing, and government. Saturday, CISA issued a rare joint advisory with the FBI warning specifically about persistent Chinese-linked attackers burrowing into utilities, municipal IT systems, and supply chain targets. The kicker? Newsweek confirmed SIM farms with links to China lighting up New York and the midwest, opening potential sabotage vectors on the telecom backbone.

But Beijing’s game is now just as much psychological as it is technical. Enter the “honey-trap.” According to the Robert Lansing Institute, the Ministry of State Security has gone full Bond villain—deploying female agents to cultivate relationships with tech insiders, snag credentials, and siphon IP. Why hack what you can seduce? Last month, U.S. counterintelligence straight-up banned state employees in China from dating locally. Not your typical patch-and-update fix.

What’s the escalation scenario if this keeps rolling? Think massive power outages timed with ransomware waves, compromised port infrastructure thanks to Chinese-made control systems, fake emergency alerts—possibly broadcast via hacked telecom switches—and total banking gridlock if financial IT is breached. These aren’t just fun cyberpunk hypotheticals; retired USMC officer Grant Newsham warns in Sunday Guardian Live that sabotage is set up to look like accident and confusion, unleashing drones, poisoned supply chains, and social media blame games before a single missile gets launched.

Mandatory defensive moves: If you’re in critical infrastructure and haven’t doubled MFA everywhere, run compromise assessments immediately—don’t just audit, assume breach. Backups must be offline and immutable, and threat intelligence—especially from DeXpose or Comparitech—needs feeding right into your XDR. Don’t ignore the social front: security awareness isn’t just about not clicking links, it’s about not giving your number to a mysterious “investor” at a tech happy hour.

Thanks for tuning in! Remember—subscribe for more deep dives and zero-day takes with me, Ting. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

Hey listeners, it’s Ting—your resident cyber sleuth and watcher of all things digital lurking east of the Great Firewall. No time to waste, because this week, Red Alert means business: China’s cyber operators have turned the dial up, and the targets? U.S. critical infrastructure, tech, and—thanks to ToolShell—a whole new set of gov networks. Let’s unpack what’s lighting up the threat boards right now.

Flashback to this Monday: the infamous ToolShell vulnerability, aka CVE-2025-53770, was patched by Microsoft ten days ago. Guess what? Symantec’s Threat Hunter Team and Trend Micro confirm that within forty-eight hours, Chinese groups like Glowworm and UNC5221 pounced. Mass scanning happened worldwide, but the real focus went to U.S. universities and tech agencies, plus telecom and government bodies in the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Glowworm and buddies dropped backdoors like Zingdoor and KrustyLoader, piggybacking off totally legitimate Trend Micro and BitDefender binaries to hide in plain sight. These folks didn’t just stay for coffee—they set up persistence, dumped credentials, and siphoned off data, using a who’s who of “living-off-the-land” tactics: PowerShell, Certutil, Minidump, the works.

Just as my VPN pinged Taiwan, Trellix Advanced Research Center (whose CyberThreat Report dropped this week) flagged a surge in activity tied to Chinese APTs in April—right as the Shandong carrier group danced into Taiwan’s Air Defense ID zone. Coincidence? Hardly. Trellix now reports 540,974 detections across 1,221 unique campaigns, with the U.S. account for 55% of victims. The big story is convergence: state-backed espionage meets hard-nosed financial motivation, supercharged by AI. Forget just ransomware. XenWare—the first fully AI-crafted ransomware—appeared in April, encrypting everything with multithreading muscle. At the same time, the LameHug AI-powered infostealer is running wild, filching credentials and adapting its phishing tricks on the fly.

Turns out, the fragmentation of the ransomware scene is good news (sort of) for defenders—no single player dominates. But the industrial sector’s feeling the worst of it, and, as The Hacker News warned today, Chinese crews are hammering U.S. critical infrastructure, mostly targeting old, unpatched, forgotten network hardware—think ancient VPNs, dusty routers, and firewalls long since abandoned by IT staff. CISA, joined by the FBI, issued an emergency alert this morning: patch the perimeter, audit network devices, and check for “mantec.exe”—a nasty little loader pretending to be Symantec but packing KrustyLoader or ShadowPad.

Active threats right now include a resurgence in living-off-the-land tactics. Salt Typhoon, another Chinese threat group, is blending in with regular network traffic, making detection that much harder. Meanwhile, the Smishing Triad just hit another milestone: over 194,000 malicious domains used for SMS phishing, with U.S. brokerage accounts a major target. Financial losses? Over $1 billion this year alone, as reported by Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42. Brokerage and banking sectors, buckle up.

Here’s the scary escalation scenario: with physical maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait ramping up, China is coupling cyber pressure on U.S. and allied networks to test response times and resilience. AI-driven threats accelerate the pace, moving from weeks or months to mere hours from breach to impact. If military tensions spike further, expect this hybrid strategy to deepen, with more brazen infrastructure disruption.

Defenders—here’s what you should do tonight: check every end-of-life router and firewall, isolate and patch any system even remotely vulnerable to ToolShell, and double your MFA enforcement, especially for remote and administrative access. Hunt for unusual PowerShell and Certutil activity, and inspect SMTP traffic for AI-generated phishing. Because in 2025, China’s daily cyber moves don’t rest and neither can you.

Stay sharp, patch smart, and thank you for tuning in! Don’t forget to subscribe for up-to-the-minute insights on Red Alert. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here, and wow, do I have some wild cyber news for you today. While you were probably enjoying your Wednesday, Chinese state hackers were throwing the mother of all cyber parties on American soil, and honestly, it's getting scary.

So let's talk about Salt Typhoon, because this crew just earned the title of most destructive cyber espionage campaign in American history according to former FBI director Christopher Wray. Between March and December 2024, these hackers didn't just knock on the door, they broke into Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. That's 397 million subscribers potentially compromised. They grabbed call logs, unencrypted texts, audio from high-ranking political figures, and even targeted presidential candidates' phones during the election. The FBI estimates over one million call records were stolen, and Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger said they can geolocate millions of people and record phone calls at will. The worst part? Despite AT&T and Verizon claiming they contained the threat, a joint cybersecurity advisory confirms Salt Typhoon maintains persistent, long-term access to networks. They're still in there.

But wait, it gets juicier. Symantec and Carbon Black just dropped a bombshell today revealing that Salt Typhoon exploited that critical SharePoint vulnerability Microsoft patched back in July, the ToolShell bug designated CVE-2025-53770. Before the patch, they hit over 400 organizations including the US Energy Department. Originally Microsoft blamed three groups, but now we know Salt Typhoon joined the party, hitting a Middle East telecom and two African government departments using their signature Zingdoor backdoor. They also compromised two South American government agencies and a US university.

Meanwhile, CISA issued emergency directive ED 26-01 yesterday after F5 Networks admitted nation-state hackers, specifically the China-nexus group UNC5221 using BRICKSTORM malware, breached their systems and stole BIG-IP source code. These attackers lived inside F5's network for at least 12 months. Federal agencies have until today, October 22nd, to inventory F5 products and secure management interfaces, with full compliance reports due October 29th.

Here's the escalation scenario that should terrify everyone: Trend Micro revealed something they're calling Premier Pass, where Chinese groups like Earth Estries and Earth Naga are now sharing access to compromised networks. Earth Estries breaks in, then hands the keys to Earth Naga for continued exploitation. They're collaborating like never before, targeting telecommunications, government agencies, and critical infrastructure across APAC, NATO countries, and Latin America.

The Treasury already sanctioned Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology for Salt Typhoon involvement, but lawmakers like Senator Mark Warner are pushing for offensive cyber operations against China. The problem? You can't credibly threaten to hack back when your own networks remain vulnerable.

So what do you do? Update everything, especially F5 and SharePoint systems. Assume breach. Monitor for unusual network traffic. And honestly, assume China can hear your phone calls right now.

Thanks for tuning in listeners, and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next cyber disaster unfolding in real time.

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This is your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

Hey listeners, Ting here, and wow do I have a wild one for you today. Sunday night dropped what might be the biggest cyber accusation of the year, and it's got all the hallmarks of a geopolitical powder keg.

So China's Ministry of State Security just went full public with claims that the NSA, yes, America's National Security Agency, has been conducting what they're calling a premeditated cyber campaign against China's National Time Service Center. Now before your eyes glaze over at the word time center, let me tell you why this is absolutely massive. This isn't some random government office. The National Time Service Center in China is the backbone that keeps Beijing Time running, which means it touches everything from financial transactions to power grids, transportation systems, and even space launches. Mess with time synchronization and you can create chaos across an entire nation's critical infrastructure.

According to the Ministry of State Security's WeChat post, this operation kicked off back on March 25, 2022. The NSA allegedly exploited vulnerabilities in an unnamed foreign smartphone brand's messaging service to compromise mobile devices belonging to staff at the Time Service Center. Classic initial access vector, right? Get into the phones, steal credentials, and you've got your foothold.

But here's where it gets spicy. By April 2023, Chinese investigators claim the NSA was using those stolen credentials to probe the center's infrastructure. Then between August 2023 and June 2024, they deployed what China calls a cyber warfare platform equipped with 42 specialized attack tools. Forty-two different weapons, listeners. These attacks were launched during late night and early morning Beijing time, routing through VPSes scattered across the US, Europe, and Asia to mask their origin. The attackers even forged digital certificates to slip past antivirus software and used military-grade encryption to cover their tracks.

The Ministry of State Security says they caught it all and neutralized the threat, claiming they have irrefutable evidence, though they haven't published any proof yet. The US Embassy in Beijing? They declined to comment specifically but fired back with their standard line about China being the most active and persistent cyber threat to American systems.

Now let's talk escalation scenarios because this is happening right as US-China tensions are already running hot over trade and tech restrictions. A public accusation like this from China's intelligence ministry isn't casual. They're putting this on the global stage, and that means either they're preparing justification for their own offensive operations or they're trying to rally international support against American cyber activities. Either way, defenders on both sides need to be watching for retaliatory strikes. We're likely to see increased scanning activity, fresh zero-day exploitation attempts, and potentially disruptive attacks against time synchronization systems, network infrastructure, or other symbolic targets.

For those of you in critical infrastructure, now's the time to review your SMS and mobile device security, rotate credentials, and watch for any unusual late-night network activity patterns that mirror what China just described.

This is the new normal, listeners. Cyber warfare played out in public accusations and shadow operations. Stay vigilant, patch everything, and assume your adversaries are already inside.

Thanks so much for tuning in, and hey, if you found this useful, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next cyber drama that unfolds.

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This is your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

Ting here and it’s time for another deep dive into the cyber chessboard, and let me tell you, the past 72 hours have been a digital thriller. The spotlight is burning on China’s National Time Service Center in Xi’an, that crucial node which pumps out standard time across China and buoys everything from their financial trades to power grids. But now it’s at the heart of a cyber crossfire.

Let’s get straight to the nitty-gritty: Just today, Beijing’s Ministry of State Security let loose a statement on WeChat, accusing the US National Security Agency of orchestrating pro-level attacks on their time center—cue your dramatic spy movie soundtrack. According to the ministry, the NSA used no less than 42 types of, and I quote, “special cyberattack weapons,” and these weren’t your average script-kiddie scripts. We’re talking a flurry of exploits aimed at both internal networks and the timing infrastructure that keeps China’s traded goods, subways, and spaceships running on schedule. This saga reportedly began as far back as 2022, but “major intrusions” happened between late 2023 and right up to now.

The Chinese claim that the NSA exploited messaging vulnerabilities in a foreign smartphone used by timing center staff, which they say could have let the US eavesdrop on ultra-sensitive clockwork secrets and, hypothetically, disrupt financial or communications systems tied to China’s standard time. Wildly, the toolset China says was deployed is reminiscent of what we saw in past Shadow Brokers leaks—modular, tailored, and built to fly under the radar. Beijing warns that it has “ironclad evidence” in hand, but has so far kept those screenshots, code snippets, and packet captures under wraps.

Pivoting to our home turf, CISA and FBI have cooled off their usual pressers, but emergency alerts sprang to life overnight across TimeSyncNet, the US federal timing backbone. There’s heightened monitoring for attacks on NTP servers and satellite time relays, and the feds are urging all agencies to audit for suspicious traffic, blocklist known command-and-control domains, and double-check admin access logs. No sector is being left out: finance, energy, and transportation have all received bulletins to verify backup clocks and test for fallback mode activation. Corporate America, hope you remembered to update that firmware.

We’re in classic tit-for-tat escalation territory—China shouts “cyber hegemon!” as it digs in, and Washington, predictably, is silent. Both sides, behind closed doors, are likely prepping their own playbooks: more probes, deep packet inspections, and maybe planting backdoors that could be leveraged in weeks or months. If either side pulls the trigger and manipulates time signals? That would be chaos—think high-stakes stock misfires, power grid disruptions, or transport network meltdowns. For now, both sides are flexing their technical muscle while hoping no one blinks first.

For listeners in the cyber trenches, my advice? Patch early, patch often, set up network time protocol (NTP) integrity checks, and run those digital forensics drills. Remember, today’s espionage is tomorrow’s headline, and your clocks might just be the battlefield.

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This is your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

Hey listeners, it’s Ting, and welcome to another dose of cyber realness—China-style. The last 72 hours have been, let’s just say, a digital fireworks show, and if you’re not tracking this, you might as well be drinking tea while your firewall burns down. Here’s what’s crackling on our threat radar.

Let’s rewind to Monday, because apparently, Beijing’s digital ops teams don’t believe in weekends. According to Microsoft’s freshly baked Digital Defense Report, Chinese state-backed groups have been laser-focused on U.S. targets, with attacks on NGOs, academia, and even commercial shipping data. They’re not just phishing for lunch—they’re after the whole buffet, hungry for anything from intellectual property to the logistics that keep our ports humming. Microsoft’s Amy Hogan-Burney put it bluntly: AI is now the secret sauce, making deepfakes, voice cloning, and synthetic personas so convincing, even your grandma might fall for a fake LinkedIn recruiter from Pyongyang—oops, wrong menace, but you get the idea.

But wait, let’s zoom in on the real-time hot zone: Cisco. Senator Bill Cassidy just lit up Chuck Robbins’ inbox, because a major Cisco vulnerability is in play—and one federal agency has already been popped. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, aka CISA, is waving the red flag, telling everyone to patch or yank those devices off the network, stat. Cassidy’s not messing around—he wants to know how Cisco’s talking to hospitals, schools, and, let’s face it, the millions of small businesses that still think “password123” is fine. Oh, and half of U.S. companies don’t even have a Chief Information Security Officer. That’s like driving a Ferrari with no brakes.

Meanwhile, Health-ISAC is flashing alerts about Citrix and Cisco ASA devices under siege, and let’s not forget, China’s been caught exploiting ArcGIS—yes, the mapping software—because why not turn your local government’s GIS into a backdoor? And while we’re geeking out, let’s talk about AI-driven phishing: attackers are now generating flawless emails that bypass filters and your boss’s better judgment. Microsoft is defending with AI, too, but this is a full-on arms race—everyone’s patching, scanning, and praying while the bad guys automate, adapt, and escalate.

Here’s the down-and-dirty timeline: Monday night, as you were binge-watching your favorite show, Chinese groups were probing for internet-facing devices and chaining zero-days faster than you can say “CVE-2024-32931.” Tuesday, CISA drops the hammer telling agencies to disconnect vulnerable Cisco gear, and Cassidy starts drafting his “please explain” email. Wednesday, Health-ISAC reports Citrix and ASA devices getting pummeled, and ArcGIS joins the party. Today, Thursday, everyone’s scrambling to implement phishing-resistant MFA, because guess what? Over 97% of identity attacks are still password-based. Multifactor is your seatbelt, listeners—click it or risk the digital equivalent of a head-on collision.

Now, escalation scenarios: if this keeps up, we’re looking at widespread disruption—ransomware on critical infrastructure, supply chain paralysis, and maybe even a really, really convincing deepfake of your CEO authorizing a wire transfer to a Hong Kong shell company. The wildcard? AI-powered disinformation. Microsoft’s already clocked over 200 instances of AI-generated fake news and videos just in July, doubling since 2024. That’s not just noise—it’s chaos sowing on an industrial scale.

Defensive actions are simple but urgent, so listen up. First, patch everything. Yes, everything. Second, turn on MFA, and make sure it’s not SMS-based, because that’s like locking your door but leaving the keys in the mailbox. Third, train your people—social engineering is the new frontline, and vishing is the weapon of choice for groups like Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, who made a meal out of Salesforce via pure phone-based trickery. Fourth, monitor for credential leaks and infostealer activity, because Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit just busted Lumma Stealer, but there are always more snakes in the grass. Finally, talk to your peers, share intel, and, if you’re a CISO, maybe hire a second-in-command. This is not a drill.

So, listeners, thanks for hanging in there with me, Ting, as we navigate the Wild West of 2025 cyber ops. If you want more of this—subscribe, because tomorrow’s headlines are already writing themselves. Until next time, this has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

Here’s Ting in the flesh—well, in a far less hackable digital form—bringing you Red Alert: China’s Daily Cyber Moves for October 15th, 2025! If you’ve been sleeping on cyber news, grab a triple espresso: today’s China-linked cyber shenanigans just hacked your inbox, crashed your firewall, and are speedrunning new emergency protocols across Uncle Sam’s backyard.

Since dawn, the scuttlebutt’s been all about the massive, very fresh F5 breach. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—whose coffee supply has surely run low—just sounded the klaxon, yanking thousands of government F5 products into patch mode. This all started when F5, based up in Seattle, realized on August 9 that someone VERY interested in BIG-IP and its source code had been quietly living in their playground, swiping code and dirt on vulnerabilities that only the top devs know about. According to CISA, any federal agency still running unpatched F5 is basically inviting attackers to grab embedded credentials, skip around via APIs, and exfiltrate whatever they please. The directive? Patch every system by October 22 or disconnect unsupported hardware and report inventory by December 3, no excuses.

Who’s behind the mask, you ask? Official lips are zipped, but—wink wink—Mandiant and others have traced recent F5 mischief directly back to Chinese groups. And it gets spookier: Bloomberg reports the breach let attackers maintain “long-term, persistent access,” making this more than your run-of-the-mill smash-and-grab.

What’s new in the toolbox? Today we’ve seen advanced backdoors and API abuse take center stage. Meanwhile, supply chain threats are looking worse than last month’s spam—just ask Russia. The Jewelbug group, tracked by Symantec, ran a five-month campaign on a Russian IT provider by repackaging Microsoft tools and even exfiltrating data through Yandex. They’re not satisfied with local chaos; their malware floats with legit traffic via Microsoft Graph API and OneDrive, shifting command-and-control out of detection range. In South America and Asia, the same crew’s been blending credential dumps and kernel exploits with kernel-level driver abuse, making incident responders want to flip the circuit breaker and move to Mars.

Meanwhile, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is raising flags—literally—about Chinese adversaries weaponizing AI to write smarter malware, automate phishing, and sneak past firewalls faster than you can say “zero day.” It’s not so much that AI is blowing up the internet, but even junior hackers now write attacks like seasoned pros using language models.

If you’re in IT or security, it’s time for defense:
Patch all F5 devices—no delay.
Isolate and inventory any legacy hardware.
Monitor cloud API activity for signs of stealthy moves.
Scrub logs and check for scheduled tasks or credential dumps.
Harden supply chain channels, especially dev and update processes.
Educate users on AI-powered phishing and escalate incident readiness.

The timeline? Attacks began surfacing August 9 with escalations peaking as of today. CISA’s alert fires off right now, and emergency patch mandates take effect this week, with lingering risks likely to trouble CISOs at least through next month.

Escalation scenario? If exploits go unpatched or residence sticks, we’re looking at persistent federal infiltration, supply chain sabotage, and potential access to high-value U.S. process flows—think energy, defense, public health. If AI blends further, automated waves of attacks could outpace even the best human defenders.

Thanks for tuning in, stay patched, stay witty, and for more red alerts and cyber drama, subscribe wherever you binge your tech talk. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This is your Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

If you’re tuning in right now, you’re already one step smarter than half the internet—and probably more patched up, too. I’m Ting, coming to you hot from the cyber front lines with Red Alert: China’s Daily Cyber Moves, October 13th, 2025 edition. Let’s jack straight into the new arc of this cat-and-mouse game, because the past few days have not been boring.

First up, let’s talk SharePoint, Microsoft’s pride and, last July, its heartbreak. After Vietnamese researcher Dinh Ho Anh Khoa demoed vulnerabilities at Pwn2Own Berlin, Chinese hackers—say hi to Linen Typhoon, Violet Typhoon, and everyone’s favorite, Storm-2603—capitalized fast. Starting July 7th, in sync with Microsoft’s final MAPP vulnerability notifications, over 400 organizations, including the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, got whacked. Storm-2603 didn’t even wait a fortnight before pivoting to ransomware, reaching targets like nuclear agencies by July 18. This blew the lid off Microsoft’s partner program: no more proof-of-concept code for Chinese affiliates, and they now get vulnerability info only when the rest of the planet does. It's a historic clampdown with global ripple effects, and it’s redefined international cyber cooperation overnight.

While the SharePoint breach garbled thousands of corporate weekends, the action’s escalated right into October. According to the Federalist, Google’s Threat Intelligence and Mandiant have been tracking the “BRICKSTORM” campaign since March. Chinese group UNC5221—an Advanced Persistent Threat actor so persistent they practically hang up paintings in your systems—are embedding backdoors with stealthy, nearly undetectable access, averaging 400 days undisturbed. That means any given network could be hosting a phantom Chinese node for over a year before anyone even blinks.

And the target list reads like a who’s-who: U.S. tech firms, SaaS providers, legal networks. It isn’t just about trade secrets anymore. These attackers are actively probing zero-day vulnerabilities in network appliances, hunting for pivot points for future sabotage. Around the same time, Salt Typhoon, another Chinese crew, compromised telecom infrastructure—including wiretap surveillance networks—impacting users from AT&T to Verizon, including those connected to recent presidential campaigns.

Naturally, CISA isn’t waiting around. Since July 20, the vulnerabilities have been on the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, with urgent advisories: patch everything. Enable anti-malware scan interface. Rotate cryptographic keys. Pull end-of-life SharePoint servers off the net. Monitor for sketchy POSTs to ToolPane.aspx—if you’re not, you’re just offering snacks to the intruders.

Meanwhile, Check Point’s October report finds that while attack volumes appear stable, the critical threats are burrowing deeper. Below the surface, activity has actually intensified, especially against U.S. healthcare, legal, and infrastructure systems. Just today, Homeland Security Newswire reports FBI warnings of China “targeting” systems along the Mississippi River—picture attempted access or mapping on logistics and water management. This isn’t theory anymore; the scenarios are shifting from espionage to power-grid disruption drills.

As escalation scenarios go, the writing’s on the firewall: if tensions continue, these Chinese “drills” could become full-scale disruptions, taking down segments of utilities, telecom, or emergency services. Private American firms still sit too quietly—losing IP and, sometimes, operational control. It’s time for detection, open intel sharing, ruthless patching, and readiness for system isolations.

Thanks for tuning in, listeners, and seriously, check those logs and rotate your keys. 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 Red Alert: China's Daily Cyber Moves podcast.

I'm Ting, and wow, what a week to be a cyber watcher! If you like your geopolitics spicy, buckle up—let’s dive into China’s daily cyber chess moves against the US, because today isn’t just another Sunday, it’s firewall-on-fire season.

First, let’s talk Qualcomm, that San Diego silicon giant, now caught in a perfect cyber storm. Just hours before President Trump went nuclear on tariffs, announcing an eye-watering 100% levy on Chinese imports starting November 1, China’s regulators unleashed their own signature move: a surprise antitrust probe into Qualcomm’s acquisition of Autotalks, an Israeli V2X chipmaker. The Chinese State Administration for Market Regulation claimed Qualcomm didn’t properly disclose parts of the deal, completed this summer. Now, if you’re imagining regulators in Beijing hunched over stacks of contracts, picture instead a digital dragnet tugging at every thread connected to US automotive supply chains. This isn’t just paperwork—think more, “Welcome to the cyber crucible.” According to an analysis by Carthage Capital’s Stephen Wu, this could be the bellwether for much broader Chinese pressure on American chip and auto sectors.

Okay, hit pause, because as China’s spotlight lands on Qualcomm, the US slams down its own set of cards. President Trump, perhaps in full Commander-in-Tweet mode, not only threatens unicorn-level tariffs, but also vows to block any and all “critical software” exports to China. The stock market, meanwhile, has a full-blown cyber panic, with CNBC reporting tech stocks tanking faster than a misconfigured firewall on patch Tuesday.

Jump to Beijing, where the Ministry of Commerce accuses the US of “nationalistic economic protectionism”—translation: hey, you’re not playing fair. China’s swift countermove is to throttle exports of rare earths and lithium batteries—those mysterious minerals powering everything from F-35s to your neighbor’s electric scooter. This is asymmetric cyber warfare by supply chain: you might firewall your networks, but can you firewall your supply chain?

Meanwhile, over at CISA and the FBI, it’s an all-hands alert. Security teams are scrambling to triage new phishing patterns aimed at US chip manufacturers, automotive firms, and anyone sipping rare earth-laced Kool-Aid. According to the latest joint emergency bulletin, the top threats include zero-day exploits in auto telematics and persistent network penetrations against semiconductor fabs. Defensive actions? Patch, monitor, double-check those vendor credentials, and yes, remind your CEO that “urgent invoice” isn’t actually from Shenzhen Tech Supply.

Timeline? October 9, China blacklists Canada’s TechInsights for reporting on Huawei. October 10, Qualcomm probe goes public under the shadow of Trump posting his tariff edict, and US critical infrastructure providers start getting anomalous traffic spikes from China-adjacent IP addresses. As of today—October 12—the cyber tit-for-tat has Wall Street jittery and the cyber threat level set somewhere between “Guarded” and “You Up At 3 a.m.?”

Potential escalation? If both sides dig in, we’ll see stepped-up Chinese cyber intrusions targeting industrial control systems, while the US might harden software export rules or even push for retaliatory cyber strikes via USCYBERCOM. There’s also the ever-present risk of ransomware or data leaks as both sides look for leverage points.

So, listeners, here’s my top advice: monitor your network telemetry, watch for new CISA/FBI alert bulletins, and if you’re in the semiconductor sector—run tabletop exercises because this is not a drill. Cyber mayhem is the new normal, and China’s not backing down digitally or economically.

Thanks for tuning in—remember to subscribe for your daily quota of cyber drama. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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