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

Hey listeners, Ting here, your go-to gal for all things China cyber chaos and hacking hijinks. Buckle up, because this past week in the US-China CyberPulse has been a non-stop thrill ride of zero-days, blacklists, and AI arms races—straight out of a spy thriller, but with more firewalls.

Picture this: I'm sipping my baijiu-laced energy drink when Cisco Talos drops a bombshell. A China-nexus crew, let's call 'em the Shadow Quirks, has been exploiting a zero-day in Cisco Secure Email Gateway since late November. CVE-2025-20393 lets them plant backdoors and wipe logs on hundreds of exposed gateways worldwide—India, Thailand, US systems lighting up like a bad pachinko machine. Shadowserver Foundation's Peter Kijewski says it's targeted, not mass chaos, but Cisco's yelling "rebuild everything!" No patch yet, just full nukes. Classic Beijing playbook: sneaky, persistent, and loving those Spam Quarantine features.

Meanwhile, over in DC, lawmakers are swinging the banhammer. Republicans want Xiaomi and DeepSeek slapped onto the Pentagon's list of China military-linked firms, joining Tencent and CATL. South China Morning Post reports this as part of the endless tech war tango. Trump's already signed a defense bill curbing investments in Chinese biotech and dual-use tech—outbound cash to PLA pals? Hard no. And get this: Nvidia's H200 AI chips are under inter-agency review for China sales, Commerce, State, Energy, Defense all piling on. Elon Musk even chimed in on X, agreeing with Adam Kobeissi that America's stagnant 1.3 terawatt grid is a "major competitive disadvantage" against China's 3.75 terawatts fueling their AI beast.

Private sector's not sleeping. US gov's pushing to privatize cyber ops, enlisting firms for offensive hacks against China-style espionage-crime mashups, per Security Conversations podcast with Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade and crew. Amazon caught a North Korean infiltrator via 110ms keystroke lag—hilarious, right? Too slow for Seattle. And ESET spotted LongNosedGoblin, a fresh China APT using Windows Group Policy for Southeast Asia gov surveillance.

Defensive strategies? Trump's halted retail CBDC to shield the dollar, while China's e-CNY hit $986B but lost $2B to DPRK hackers—prompting Beijing's beefed-up Cybersecurity Law penalties and AI fraud detectors. International angle: new US security strategy dials back China hostility, SCMP editorials note, but lawmakers still eye TikTok's algo spin-off warily.

Emerging tech-wise, privacy regs are exploding—EU GDPR fined TikTok €530M for China data dumps, Texas AG Ken Paxton grabbed $2.775B from Meta and Google. US bets on AI firewalls against "insider" agents, per GovTech's 2026 predictions, as CCP's Five-Year Plan hands hackers a Western tech hit-list.

Whew, from Cisco breaches to blacklists, America's hardening shields while China's AI models like DeepSeek and Moonshot rival US giants. Stay vigilant, patch fast, and laugh at the lag—it's the only way to win this pulse-pounding game.

Thanks for tuning in, listeners—subscribe now for more cyber spice! This has been a Quiet Please production, for more check out quietplease.ai.

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