China is trying to use cyber weapons to preposition the US and the West for "societal havoc and chaos in civilian infrastructure" in the event of a conflict, Nick Andersen, Executive Assistant Director for the Cybersecurity Division (CSD) of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said on Tuesday.
Speaking at the Cyber Week conference at Tel Aviv University, Andersen stated that in terms of hacking threats, "the most significant and comprehensive threat in the long term is absolutely from the People's Republic of China."
They have a "long-term cyber campaign, not just to gather intelligence, but to shape the battle space – infrastructure…using persistent reconnaissance and low-key intrusions," said the American CISA cyber official.
He accused China of "embedding in water, the energy grid, the cloud, telecommunications, and identity systems" in order to "weaken national resolve during a time of crisis."
Andersen suggested that "US and Israeli efforts align in this regard" to block Beijing from putting civilian infrastructure at risk, while masking its actions as routine network activity.
Chinese positioning, an existing threat
According to the CISA official, the US and its allies must "continue to shift to disrupt the Chinese prepositioning" ambushes within their civilian infrastructure.
"Operational cooperation with Israel is essential not just to our success, but as part of global cyber defense efforts." He advocated improving toward "higher identity protocols, improved login [defenses], improved telemetry at time of conflict."
Andersen acknowledged that Russia, Iran, and North Korea are also major cyber threats, but said China is the greatest one.
This is a shift over the last decade or so, given that Moscow was once considered the number one cyber threat.
The issue is sensitive for Israel, which, while suspicious of the Chinese in certain areas, including their support of Iran, and wanting to support the US, has also tried to maintain positive relations with Beijing wherever possible.