Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said that covert efforts “like the activity exposed today are part of what’s driving our focus on the security of telecom networks and the urgency to use trusted vendors” whose equipment has met established cybersecurity standards.
Ms. Neuberger has been spearheading an effort across the federal government to enforce new cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructure. Officials were taken by surprise by the extent of the vulnerabilities in such infrastructure when a Russian ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline in 2021 interrupted gasoline, diesel and airplane fuel flow on the East Coast. In the wake of the attack, the Biden administration used little-known powers of the Transportation Security Administration — which regulates pipelines — to force private-sector utilities to follow a series of cybersecurity mandates.
Now Ms. Neuberger is driving what she called a “relentless focus on improving the cybersecurity of our pipelines, rail systems, water systems and other critical services,” including the mandates on cybersecurity practices for these sectors and closer collaboration with companies with “unique visibility” into threats to such infrastructure.
Those firms include Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and many telecommunications firms that can see activity on domestic networks. Intelligence agencies, including the N.S.A., are forbidden by law from operating inside the United States. But the N.S.A. is permitted to publish warnings, as it did on Wednesday, alongside the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Infrastructure and Security Administration.
The agency’s report is part of a relatively new U.S. government move to publish such data quickly in hopes of burning operations like the one mounted by the Chinese government. In years past, the United States usually withheld such information — sometimes classifying it — and shared it with only a select few companies or organizations. But that almost always assured that the hackers could stay well ahead of the government.
In this case, it was the focus on Guam that particularly seized the attention of officials who are assessing China’s capabilities — and its willingness — to attack or choke off Taiwan. Mr. Xi has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be capable of taking the island by 2027. But the C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, has noted to Congress that the order “does not mean he has decided to conduct an invasion.”
In the dozens of U.S. tabletop exercises conducted in recent years to map out what such an attack might look like, one of China’s first anticipated moves would be to cut off American communications and slow the United States’ ability to respond. So the exercises envision attacks on satellite and ground communications, especially around American installations where military assets would be mobilized.
None is bigger than Guam, where Andersen Air Force Base would be the launching point for many of the Air Force missions to help defend the island, and a Navy port is crucial for American submarines.
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