US Views China as Most Capable Cyber Threat to American Infrastructure: Top Security Official

HOUSTON (Sputnik) - The US views China as its biggest cybersecurity threat amid concerns it may be learning lessons from the Ukraine conflict as Beijing may potentially be preparing to carry out a military operation in Taiwan, US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly said.

"Russia is the hurricane, China is climate change," Easterly said on Thursday. "What I think China sees in Ukraine is the fact that they are going to hold our infrastructure at-risk to have a better chance of succeeding if they do invade Taiwan, and so it's one of the reasons why we all need to have a sense of urgency about everything to do to secure infrastructure, to build redundancy, to build resilience, to have mental overrides so you can actually withstand the types of attacks that they seek."

The United States’ biggest cyber threats come from Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, but China is the major threat that draws the most concern in terms of being able to potentially breach critical US infrastructure, according to Easterly.

Moreover, Easterly said the US has not seen Russia attempt to carry out any significant cyberattacks against US infrastructure ever since Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine began in February 2022.

In 2022, Russia launched the special military operation in Ukraine in response to requests by the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics to protect them from intensifying attacks by Ukrainian troops. The Russian Defense Ministry said the operation, which targets Ukrainian military infrastructure, aims to "demilitarize and denazify" Ukraine, and to completely liberate the Donbass.