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

I’m Ting, your all-access cyber sleuth, and today, we’re talking about Dragon’s Code: America Under Cyber Siege—because wow, the last few days have been a real-life season finale in US–China cyber escalation.

Let’s not mince words: over the past week, Chinese state-backed hackers have pulled off some of the most sophisticated cyber operations we’ve seen yet, primarily targeting US infrastructure. The talk of the infosec world? The resurgence and evolution of the Volt Typhoon campaign. If that name sounds familiar, it should. Back in 2024, this group went viral—in the worst way—by sinking its digital claws into US critical sectors. Now, they’re back, and they’ve upgraded their toolkit.

So, what’s new in their attack methodology? Volt Typhoon has moved beyond conventional spear-phishing and is now deploying zero-day exploits—think undisclosed software vulnerabilities—against everything from hospital networks to power grids. They’re not crashing systems outright. Instead, they’re living off the land, using built-in admin tools to stealthily exfiltrate data and map out how to trigger maximum chaos should Beijing ever give the green light. The group managed lateral movement across utility and transportation systems, and evidence shows they lurked inside an electric grid for almost a year without detection.

Affected systems this week have ranged from health care devices—putting patient care at risk—to maritime logistics and even government communications platforms. One Runsafe report flagged how a coordinated attack on medical devices created localized outages in patient monitoring, straining already tight hospital budgets.

Now, about attribution: it’s no longer cloak-and-dagger. In a bombshell, Chinese officials in a December meeting basically admitted to US counterparts that they orchestrated Volt Typhoon’s operations as a "warning" over Taiwan. Cybersecurity investigators traced obfuscated traffic, domain infrastructure, and tool signatures right back to Chinese APTs. According to Michael Daniel, former White House cyber coordinator, “This is as close to a digital smoking gun as you get.”

On the defense front, US agencies didn’t sit idle. CISA led a rapid joint response, rolling out advanced threat-hunting scripts and mandatory network segmentation across the most targeted sectors. They coordinated with critical infrastructure orgs to patch zero-day exploits and deploy anomaly detection powered by AI. Surge teams from NSA and private firms like Mandiant even simulated Volt Typhoon’s maneuvers in live-fire exercises to fortify the most vulnerable links.

Lessons learned? First, the era of static defense is over; adversaries are patient, persistent, and already inside. Second, collaboration between government and industry is the only way forward. Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, summed it up on Wednesday: “This is not just code vs. code—it’s a test of national resilience.”

And there you have it: Dragon’s Code may sound mythical, but the threat is all too real. Until next time, patch early, patch often, and remember—never underestimate a dragon with a broadband connection.

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