China accuses US of major cyber-attack

The US National Security Agency hacked China’s National Time Service Center over several years, the Chinese counter-espionage agency has claimed

China has accused the US National Security Agency (NSA) of waging a “major” multi-year cyberattack on the Chinese agency responsible for keeping national time.

In a statement posted on its official social media account on Sunday, the Ministry of State Security (MSS) said it had “obtained irrefutable evidence” that the NSA infiltrated the National Time Service Center. The covert operation allegedly began in March 2022, aiming to steal state secrets and conduct acts of cyber sabotage.

The center serves as China’s official time authority, issuing and broadcasting ‘Beijing Time’ to key sectors including finance, energy, transport, and defense. A disruption to this critical piece of infrastructure could have caused widespread instability in financial markets, logistics and power supply, according to the MSS.

According to the MSS, the NSA first exploited a vulnerability in the foreign-made mobile phones of several staff members at the center, gaining access to sensitive data.

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In April 2023, the agency allegedly began using stolen passwords to breach the facility’s computer systems, an operation that peaked between August of that year and June 2024.

The ministry claimed that the intruders deployed 42 distinct cyber tools in their covert operation, and used virtual private servers based in the US, Europe, and Asia to mask their origin.

The MSS accused the US of “aggressively pursuing cyber-hegemony” and “repeatedly trampling on international norms governing cyberspace.” 

American spy agencies “have acted recklessly, continuously carrying out cyberattacks targeting China, Southeast Asia, Europe, and South America,” it added.

In recent years, Beijing and Washington have repeatedly traded accusations of breaches and covert hacking operations. Mutual recriminations have come as part of a broader pattern of confrontation between the two powers, which have also been locked in a trade war.

In early January, the Washington Post claimed that Chinese hackers had targeted the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) the previous month. Commenting on the allegations at the time, Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, dismissed them as “unfounded.”