Beijing slams Five Eyes for cyberattack allegations

Volt Typhoon, a hacking group backed by the Chinese government, was once again called out by Five Eyes countries’ Joint Cybersecurity Advisory for its plan to launch destructive cyberattacks against critical infrastructure in the United States and allies.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in a report on February 7 that the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s state-sponsored cyber actors are seeking to pre-position themselves for cyberattacks in the event of a major crisis or conflict with the US.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the Five Eyes countries of launching a smear campaign against China.

“We firmly oppose the US and other Five Eyes nations smearing and attacking China without any evidence,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a press conference.

“The alliance needs to know that falsely accusing China will not hide the fact that Five Eyes is the largest global intelligence agency and the US is the No.1 ‘hacking state’ in the world,” he said.

He urged Five Eyes countries to join China’s Global Initiative on Data Security, which was unveiled four years ago to call on countries to jointly build cyberspace that will feature peace, security, openness, cooperation and a sound order, and not to use information technology to undermine other countries’ critical infrastructure, steal important data or otherwise endanger their national security and public interests.

The report of the Joint Cybersecurity Advisory was published after FBI Director Christopher Wray warned on January 31 that China’s hackers are targeting American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and