China could “wreak havoc” on US infrastructure: FBI

China’s cyber warfare capabilities dwarf those of other nations and could shut the US down causing death and panic, a US congressional committee has heard.

Jen Easterly, Director of the Homeland Security Department's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, testifies during a Congressional full committee hearing on the "The CCP Cyber Threat to the American Homeland and National Security".

The Chinese Communist Party was capable of shutting down the US with a massive wave of cyber-attacks that would cripple the economy as telecommunications, energy pipelines and air and port traffic control systems suddenly ground to a halt, a Congressional committee has heard.

Top Biden administration officials warned congress on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) to brace for sophisticated attacks by Beijing that would “wreak havoc” on the nation’s infrastructure, making the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline in May 2021 that disrupted petrol distribution seem like a walk in the park.

“China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if or when China decides the time has come to strike,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray in his testimony.

US and Australian authorities have increasingly collaborated to combat the growing threat of cyberattacks in particular from actors in China and Russia which have already launched successful attacks on commercial and government infrastructure in both nations, including on Victoria’s courts earlier this month.

“Just this morning we announced an operation where we and our partners identified hundreds of routers that had been taken over by the PRC state-sponsored hacking group known as Volt-Typhoon,” he added, referring to a group whose nefarious activities Microsoft first drew attention to publicly in May 2023.

“The PRC has a bigger hacking programme than that of every major nation combined; in fact, if you took every single one of the FBI cyber agents and intelligence analysts and focused them exclusively on the China threat, China’s hackers would still outnumber FBI personnel by at least 50 to one,” Mr Wray told the committee.

FBI Director, Christopher Wray, also speaks at the landmark hearing.

China has denied carrying out cyberattacks against the US or other nations and argues American spy agencies are guilty of such conduct.

The hearing was the second in two days conducted by the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party intended to highlight military and economic threats posed by Beijing to the US, as tension between the world’s two superpowers intensifies across a range of issues, especially the future of Taiwan.

A day earlier the bipartisan committee heard how a Chinese miliary blockade of Taiwan would be “an act of war very much in the same way than an invasion would be” according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, one of those who testified.

“It [would] get difficult very quickly, for the Vietnamese, the Japanese, the Philippines, the Australians, even more quickly than [it would] for us here in the United States,” he added.

Jennifer Easterly, Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said in Wednesday’s hearing that China’s goal in the event of a cyber-attack would be to “incite societal panic and chaos, and to deter our ability to marshal military might”, referencing the shortages caused by the Colonial pipeline shutdown.

“But imagine that on a massive scale, not one pipeline, but many pipelines disrupted; telecommunications going down so people can’t use their cell phone, people start getting sick from polluted water. trains get derailed, air traffic and port control systems malfunctioning,” she said.

“This is truly and everything, everywhere, all at once scenario, and it’s one where the Chinese government believes that it will likely crush American will for the US to defend Taiwan”.

In October the Five Eyes intelligence agencies gathered in Stanford, California to warn businesses about what ASIO’s director general, Mike Burgess, then called “the most sustained, sophisticated, and scaled theft of intellectual property and expertise in human history” by China.

“This is the cyberspace equivalent of placing bombs on American bridges, water treatment facilities, and power plants,” Republican committee chairman Mike Gallagher said during the hearing.

“There is no economic benefit for these actions. There is no intelligence gathering rationale. The sole purpose is to be ready to destroy American infrastructure, which will inevitably result in mass American casualties”.