- The city of Harbin says three NSA agents and two universities were involved in attacks on the country’s critical infrastructure
- The attacks allegedly took place during the Asian Winter Games
- They included running “pre-installed” Windows malware
Chinese authorities have accused the US National Security Agency (NSA), and a pair of American universities, of conducting cyberattacks on the country’s critical infrastructure.
A report by the city of Harbin public security bureau said three NSA agents were involved, as well as the University of California and Virginia Tech, in the attacks, which took place during the Asian Winter Games in February 2025
“The US National Security Agency (NSA) launched cyber attacks against important industries such as energy, transportation, water conservancy, communications, and national defence research institutions in Heilongjiang province,” the report claimed.
Social disorder
Harbin is located in northeastern China, in Heilongjiang Province, which borders Russia. It sits on the south bank of the Songhua River, making it an important regional hub near the Russian Far East and part of China’s coldest region.
The goal of the attacks were to sabotage China’s critical information infrastructure, it was further explained, “causing social disorder, and stealing important confidential information”.
There were no details on the agents, or how the universities were involved in the attacks.
Allegedly, they “repeatedly carried out cyber attacks on China’s critical information infrastructure and participated in cyber attacks on Huawei and other enterprises.”
The report does state that the campaign included the activation of “specific pre-installed backdoors” in Microsoft Windows installed on some devices in Heilongjiang.
Cybersecurity researchers often warn about Chinese state-sponsored threat actors running cyber-espionage campaigns, malware attacks, and other forms of cybercrime against critical infrastructure in the West. However, China always denies any involvement in these activities and instead accuses the US of being the world’s biggest cyber-bully.
In fact, on one occasion it said that Volt Typhoon, a known Chinese state-sponsored group was, in fact, a CIA asset.
Via MSN
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