US passes itself off as victim of cyberattacks to smear China

A report released by the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center on Monday says intelligence agencies in the United States used the unfounded excuse of "Chinese cyber threat" to smear China in exchange for US government funding.

In February, a US congressional committee held a hearing on the alleged cyber threat from China, claiming a Chinese State-sponsored hacking organization, "Volt Typhoon", had launched a series of activities affecting critical infrastructure sector networks across the US. China's joint investigation team conducted a traceability analysis and found that the allegations were unfounded, having been made purely with the intention of maligning China.

In May last year, Microsoft released a technical analysis report claiming that the "Volt Typhoon" hacker organization was backed by the Chinese government. Next, the cybersecurity authorities of the "Five Eyes" allies issued a joint advisory citing the report and hyped it up. Neither the advisory nor the report provided a detailed analytical process for source tracing of the cyberattacks. But that did not stop them from claiming that "Volt Typhoon" was a State-sponsored Chinese cyber actor.

Analysis by Chinese technical teams shows that "Volt Typhoon" does not bear the characteristics of a State-backed hacker. On the contrary, its activities bore the signature of a ransomware or cybercriminal group. Therefore, it was baseless to call "Volt Typhoon" a China-backed hacker on the basis of such ambiguous factors.

Tracing the source of cyberattacks has long been an international problem, given that attackers always hide their true identity and geographic location, such as by using virtual private networks, or launching attacks by hijacking infected computers as relay points. However, the US always makes use of this difficulty to pass itself off as the "victim" of cyberattacks. Once it manages to gain the support of international public opinion, the US next uses this as a political chip to put pressure on other countries in international disputes, and seek excessive benefits.

In recent years, China's public security organs have noticed cyberattacks on the websites of the Northwestern Polytechnical University, the Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center and other institutions by the US National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, showing that the US is the real "hacker empire".

At present, cyberattacks are mainly cross-border crimes, and all countries need to strengthen cooperation under the framework of Interpol, share intelligence on cybercrime and coordinate governance, to jointly combat cybersecurity threats, rather than forming "exclusive cliques" among a few countries. The US should know full well that protecting critical infrastructure is a common concern of all countries, and maintaining peace and stability in cyberspace serves the common interests of China, the US and other countries around the world.

-CHINA MEDIA GROUP