The hacking of the U.S. information technology company “SolarWinds” (SolarWinds) has continued to ferment in recent days. The attack, described as a “nuclear bomb” level cyber attack, has exposed the U.S. cyber security crisis. Officials and experts, including the acting secretary of Homeland Security and the former head of cybersecurity at the Department of Defense, believe that a Communist-led cyberattack would have catastrophic consequences for the United States.
Communist Party-Led Cyber Attacks
Former Defense Department cybersecurity policy and strategy chief John Mills said in a Dec. 25 interview with New Tang Dynasty that the Chinese Communist Party led the cyberattack on the Sunwind incident. Mills said, “I have no doubt that the Russians, as a secondary partner, were involved in some form in the cyberattack, and that the Chinese Communist Party was the primary attacker.”
Mills also believes that Venezuela and Iran, as proxies of the Chinese Communist Party, may have been involved in the attack as well. He noted that Venezuela was the front line of the Chinese Communist Party’s attack on the United States. Iran and Venezuela are essentially proxies or puppets of the CCP.
Mills said that since 2015, when the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the U.S. personnel management agency, was attacked by Chinese hackers, resulting in the leakage of information on more than 4 million federal employees, the Chinese Communist Party has become the number one adversary in cyber attacks on the United States.
On the 18th night, Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News’ “Mark Levin Show” that the government is still decrypting the hack, but he believes Russia is behind the Sunwind cyber attack, and that Russia is a hostile country to the United States, but the Chinese Communist Party is the primary threat to the United States.
Earlier, acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf emphasized in a Dec. 20 speech that the Chinese Communist Party is using cyberattacks to damage the U.S. economy and infrastructure.
He said, “The Chinese Communist Party poses a high cyber threat to the U.S. homeland, as evidenced by continued cyber espionage against the U.S. government and businesses that are increasingly capable of threatening and disrupting our critical infrastructure. The attack capabilities of the Chinese Communist Party hackers should alert all Americans.”
Wolfe said, “A single Chinese Communist cyberattack could cause catastrophic damage to our critical infrastructure.”
U.S. suffers nuclear-grade cyberattack
On Dec. 13, several media outlets reported that hackers had breached the SolarWinds software, leaving major U.S. government departments, including the State Department, the Office of the President, the Treasury Department and the Commerce Department, and some 18,000 public and private organizations worldwide as victims.
22 A few days ago Morgan Wright, an internationally renowned senior cyber security expert, said in an interview with Fox News that the cyber attack on the United States, like a nuclear bomb explosion, was devastating. The impact is not just happening now, but will affect the United States for many years.
He said the attack got into the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, critical infrastructure with sensitive information ranging from banks to financial systems, from energy grids to water supplies.
That information has been stored for future use, he said. On the other hand, the continued information damage at the government level, the theft of data and sensitive conversations, how the hacked data will be used is a real concern.
U.S. House of Representatives Report on Strategies to Address Chinese Communist Cyberattacks
In late September, the U.S. House of Representatives’ “China Task Force” report on a comprehensive assessment of the Chinese Communist threat also revealed the impact of a Chinese Communist cyberattack on the United States and options to address it, stating, “The Chinese Communist Party has demonstrated its ability and willingness to launch cyberattacks against the United States, putting American consumers and U.S. critical infrastructure at risk.”
The report quotes Assistant Attorney General John Demers as saying, “China is using cyber theft as part of a global campaign to ‘rob, copy, and displace’ non-Chinese companies in the global marketplace. “
The report recommends that the U.S. use a resilient cyber ecosystem, which is critical to reducing the risk of major attacks on military and critical infrastructure systems and the open economy. It also emphasizes “the need for coordinated government action and new legislative solutions to address this rapidly evolving threat.”
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