China aims its influence operations at incoming Biden administration, top intel official says

Meanwhile, some 1,000 researchers affiliated with the Chinese military have left the U.S., according to another official.

China has increased its influence operations targeting incoming Biden administration personnel and their associates since the presidential election, the top U.S. counterintelligence official said Wednesday.

“We’re starting to see that now play [out] across the country, to not only the folks who are in the new administration, but those who are around those folks in the new administration,” William Evanina, who heads the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said at an online event hosted by the Aspen Institute.

Evanina did not elaborate on what the Chinese influence activity entailed. But another U.S. intelligence official told CyberScoop it included intelligence collection and efforts to shape U.S. policy. Evanina did say that China had engaged in an “uptick” in influence operations since the Nov. 3 election of Joe Biden that were focused on the president-elect’s advisers.

Chinese influence activity in the past has included amplification of state-controlled media outlets and other means of reaching a domestic U.S. audience.

Evanina, who has headed the NCSC for more than six years, said he would make a point of briefing incoming Biden administration officials on the matter.  “That’s one area we’re going to be very keen on making sure the new administration understands that influence,” he said.

Evanina’s comments follow a Tuesday warning from the FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that state-sponsored hackers were targeting think tanks. Many of Biden’s national security and foreign policy advisers come from think tanks, which can hold clues about future U.S. government policy.

The advisory did not identify any particular governments behind the activity. Chinese state-linked hackers have, however, previously tried unsuccessfully to phish the Biden campaign, according to Google.

Senior officials in the incoming Biden administration “have been, currently are, and will be the targets of malicious cyber activity and influence operations,” said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “As the team is put together and announced, it’s unsurprising that the organizations they have recently worked with appear to be the targets of similar activity.”

At the Aspen Institute event, Evanina and John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, harped on what they said was a persistent national security threat from China.

Demers said that as a result of Justice Department initiative begun in 2018, more than 1,000 researchers affiliated with the Chinese military had left the country, whether because of U.S. expulsions or other actions.

“What we’re trying to do in the cases is not just arrest that individual but disrupt a broader course of activity,” Demers said.

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

Threats

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

• Jail time for Maine child in 764 marks turning point in federal law enforcement

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure