FILE – President Joe Biden, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands before their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit meeting, Nov. 14, 2022, in Nusa Dua, in Bali, Indonesia. As President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping prepare to meet at the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, basic information has remained guarded. That could ratchet up the pressure on how each side negotiates, down to the smallest detail. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday, there will be no such thing as a small detail.

How they greet? If they eat? Where they sit? Will there be flowers? Bottled water or in a glass? “Pretty intense,” senior administration officials say of navigating delicate protocols.

Any encounter involving the president and a foreign leader means managing tricky logistics, political and cultural, and every occurrence or utterance can potentially jolt the world order. But few nations are more attuned to etiquette than the Chinese, and the often-conflicting interests between Washington and Beijing might mean the seemingly trivial becomes meaningful.

There’s probably “very detailed planning of the actual choreography of who enters a room where, if there will be pictures taken and all of that,” said Bonny Lin, senior fellow for Asian security and director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Biden and Xi will meet while both attend next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. So far, even basic information has remained closely guarded. Statements Friday by China’s government didn’t mention the day or location. The White House, citing security concerns, says only that the meeting will be held “in the Bay area.”

That could only increase the pressure as both sides potentially haggle over everything from meeting time and length to who enters the room first. Will they use a table or easy chairs? What about security presence and interpreter access?

Then there is the more obviously substantive: Will there be a joint statement after the meeting and how much of the session will be in public view?

The plan is to set aside enough time for in-depth conversations on issues that will be divided into different sessions, senior administration officials say. That recalls Biden’s nearly three-hour meeting with Xi before the start of last year’s G-20 summit in Bali.

The officials also noted that this will be Xi’s first trip to the United States in six years, and his first to San Francisco since he was a provincial Communist Party secretary.

Victor Cha, former director for Asian Affairs on the White House’s National Security Council, said organizing such meetings at APEC is easier than at a formal location. But, he said, hammering out talks on summit sidelines is still “a logistics nightmare.”

“China, normally, if they come to United States, they want everything. They want all the pomp and circumstance. They want the highest possible respect that can be paid to them,” Cha said. “That is politically not possible. And so, having APEC in San Francisco solves that problem in the sense that it’s not the official White House that’s hosting the meeting.”

Even informal settings can bring high stakes.

When President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, aiming to ease decades of animosity, he brought a new pair of shoes with rubber soles to climb the Great Wall.

President Barack Obama and Xi didn’t wear ties during their 2013 meeting at Sunnylands, a modernist mansion in Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs, California. It was news then that Obama stayed overnight there while the Chinese delegation returned to a nearby hotel.

President Donald Trump and Xi wore dark suits for dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida four years later. The meal featured what Trump called “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake.”

Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund, said that, for the upcoming meeting, Xi’s team likely pushed for a venue away from the APEC site and talks lasting longer than those in Bali.

“The Chinese want a separate summit,” she said.

The Chinese attach importance to the location, which this time may be more like Sunnylands than Anchorage, Alaska, where top U.S. and Chinese officials held rather tense 2021 talks. Chinese state media might fixate on the weather as a barometer for bilateral relations. Early forecasts are calling for rain with a high in the mid-60s for San Francisco.

Even on-site flowers could be important, as certain choices can symbolize harmony in Chinese culture. Plum blossom is a well-liked flower known in China for persevering amid harshness, while lotuses convey peace in the Chinese language. Chrysanthemums, by contrast, are associated with death.

Xi may expect Biden to greet him upon arrival. Xi’s team could also want the leaders photographed together without staff to convey a personal relationship.

“Chinese officials will want to project to their domestic audience that Xi is received by Biden with dignity and respect,” said Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institute. He suggested that required “imagery of both leaders interacting on a personal basis, beyond the customary handshake in front of a bank of flags in a hotel conference room.”

That could be as simple as a short walk together, Hass said. The Chinese also tend to emphasize food and might push for a meal.

During Nixon’s 1971 visit, a military honor guard greeted him at the airport, but the much-watched series of toasts from both sides came later, only after a shark fin banquet dish was served. China offered a Texas-style barbecue at a luxury Beijing hotel to fete President George H.W. Bush in 1989, but blocked his invitation of Fang Lizhi, then the country’s best-known dissident.

The APEC setting precludes a formal dinner. But lunch is possible. That’s despite Xi scheduling his trips down to the minute and often packing in so much that there’s no time to eat, according to a documentary on its diplomatic principles China released in 2017.

Both sides also always have security concerns. Obama wrote in his memoir of his 2009 China trip that his team was “instructed to leave any non-governmental electronic devices on the plane” and to operate assuming “that our communications were being monitored” and hotel rooms had hidden cameras.

Hillary Clinton’s 1995 Beijing visit as first lady turned heads for a different reason when she declared that “human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.” So did then-first lady Laura Bush’s 2008 trip to the Olympics in Beijing after she stopped in Thailand and visited a refugee camp for people fleeing the government of China-backed Myanmar.

But protocols around U.S.-China leader interactions don’t always have to address espionage threats or human rights matters.

Obama’s daughter Sasha was 9 and studying Mandarin in school when she practiced a few phrases during a 2011 White House welcome ceremony for Chinese President Hu Jintao. When she and her sister Malia visited China with their mother, Michelle, on a goodwill tour three years later, the Chinese press dubbed the then-first lady “Mrs. Diplomatic.”

That trip featured a toboggan ride away from the press after a Great Wall visit, and a game of table tennis where Michelle Obama joked that her husband played the game and “thinks he’s better than he really is.” Yet what unfolded felt stiff to some. The write-up in The New York Times carried the headline: “Even With Ping-Pong, a Formal Meeting in China.”

___

Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

The post Biden and Xi are set to satisfy subsequent week on the APEC summit. No element is simply too small to sweat appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday, there will be no such thing as a small detail.

How they greet? If they eat? Where they sit? Will there be flowers? Bottled water or in a glass? “Pretty intense,” senior administration officials say of navigating delicate protocols.

Any encounter involving the president and a foreign leader means managing tricky logistics, political and cultural, and every occurrence or utterance can potentially jolt the world order. But few nations are more attuned to etiquette than the Chinese, and the often-conflicting interests between Washington and Beijing might mean the seemingly trivial becomes meaningful.

There’s probably “very detailed planning of the actual choreography of who enters a room where, if there will be pictures taken and all of that,” said Bonny Lin, senior fellow for Asian security and director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Biden and Xi will meet while both attend next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. So far, even basic information has remained closely guarded. Statements Friday by China’s government didn’t mention the day or location. The White House, citing security concerns, says only that the meeting will be held “in the Bay area.”

That could only increase the pressure as both sides potentially haggle over everything from meeting time and length to who enters the room first. Will they use a table or easy chairs? What about security presence and interpreter access?

Then there is the more obviously substantive: Will there be a joint statement after the meeting and how much of the session will be in public view?

The plan is to set aside enough time for in-depth conversations on issues that will be divided into different sessions, senior administration officials say. That recalls Biden’s nearly three-hour meeting with Xi before the start of last year’s G-20 summit in Bali.

The officials also noted that this will be Xi’s first trip to the United States in six years, and his first to San Francisco since he was a provincial Communist Party secretary.

Victor Cha, former director for Asian Affairs on the White House’s National Security Council, said organizing such meetings at APEC is easier than at a formal location. But, he said, hammering out talks on summit sidelines is still “a logistics nightmare.”

“China, normally, if they come to United States, they want everything. They want all the pomp and circumstance. They want the highest possible respect that can be paid to them,” Cha said. “That is politically not possible. And so, having APEC in San Francisco solves that problem in the sense that it’s not the official White House that’s hosting the meeting.”

Even informal settings can bring high stakes.

When President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, aiming to ease decades of animosity, he brought a new pair of shoes with rubber soles to climb the Great Wall.

President Barack Obama and Xi didn’t wear ties during their 2013 meeting at Sunnylands, a modernist mansion in Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs, California. It was news then that Obama stayed overnight there while the Chinese delegation returned to a nearby hotel.

President Donald Trump and Xi wore dark suits for dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida four years later. The meal featured what Trump called “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake.”

Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund, said that, for the upcoming meeting, Xi’s team likely pushed for a venue away from the APEC site and talks lasting longer than those in Bali.

“The Chinese want a separate summit,” she said.

The Chinese attach importance to the location, which this time may be more like Sunnylands than Anchorage, Alaska, where top U.S. and Chinese officials held rather tense 2021 talks. Chinese state media might fixate on the weather as a barometer for bilateral relations. Early forecasts are calling for rain with a high in the mid-60s for San Francisco.

Even on-site flowers could be important, as certain choices can symbolize harmony in Chinese culture. Plum blossom is a well-liked flower known in China for persevering amid harshness, while lotuses convey peace in the Chinese language. Chrysanthemums, by contrast, are associated with death.

Xi may expect Biden to greet him upon arrival. Xi’s team could also want the leaders photographed together without staff to convey a personal relationship.

“Chinese officials will want to project to their domestic audience that Xi is received by Biden with dignity and respect,” said Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institute. He suggested that required “imagery of both leaders interacting on a personal basis, beyond the customary handshake in front of a bank of flags in a hotel conference room.”

That could be as simple as a short walk together, Hass said. The Chinese also tend to emphasize food and might push for a meal.

During Nixon’s 1971 visit, a military honor guard greeted him at the airport, but the much-watched series of toasts from both sides came later, only after a shark fin banquet dish was served. China offered a Texas-style barbecue at a luxury Beijing hotel to fete President George H.W. Bush in 1989, but blocked his invitation of Fang Lizhi, then the country’s best-known dissident.

The APEC setting precludes a formal dinner. But lunch is possible. That’s despite Xi scheduling his trips down to the minute and often packing in so much that there’s no time to eat, according to a documentary on its diplomatic principles China released in 2017.

Both sides also always have security concerns. Obama wrote in his memoir of his 2009 China trip that his team was “instructed to leave any non-governmental electronic devices on the plane” and to operate assuming “that our communications were being monitored” and hotel rooms had hidden cameras.

Hillary Clinton’s 1995 Beijing visit as first lady turned heads for a different reason when she declared that “human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.” So did then-first lady Laura Bush’s 2008 trip to the Olympics in Beijing after she stopped in Thailand and visited a refugee camp for people fleeing the government of China-backed Myanmar.

But protocols around U.S.-China leader interactions don’t always have to address espionage threats or human rights matters.

Obama’s daughter Sasha was 9 and studying Mandarin in school when she practiced a few phrases during a 2011 White House welcome ceremony for Chinese President Hu Jintao. When she and her sister Malia visited China with their mother, Michelle, on a goodwill tour three years later, the Chinese press dubbed the then-first lady “Mrs. Diplomatic.”

That trip featured a toboggan ride away from the press after a Great Wall visit, and a game of table tennis where Michelle Obama joked that her husband played the game and “thinks he’s better than he really is.” Yet what unfolded felt stiff to some. The write-up in The New York Times carried the headline: “Even With Ping-Pong, a Formal Meeting in China.”

Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

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The post Biden and Xi are set to satisfy subsequent week on the APEC summit. No element is just too small to sweat | Nationwide Information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday, there will be no such thing as a small detail.

How they greet? If they eat? Where they sit? Will there be flowers? Bottled water or in a glass? “Pretty intense,” senior administration officials say of navigating delicate protocols.

Any encounter involving the president and a foreign leader means managing tricky logistics, political and cultural, and every occurrence or utterance can potentially jolt the world order. But few nations are more attuned to etiquette than the Chinese, and Washington and Beijing’s often-conflicting interests might mean the seemingly trivial becomes meaningful.

There’s probably “very detailed planning of the actual choreography of who enters a room where, if there will be pictures taken and all of that,” said Bonny Lin, senior fellow for Asian security and director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Biden and Xi will meet while both attend next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, but even basic information has remained closely guarded. Statements Friday by China’s government didn’t mention the day or location, and the White House says only that the face-to-face will be held “in the Bay area,” citing security concerns.

That could only increase the pressure as both sides potentially haggle over everything from meeting time and length to who enters the room first. Will they use a table or easy chairs? What about security presence and interpreter access?

Then there is the more obviously substantive: whether there will be a post-meeting joint statement and how much of the session will be in public view.

The plan is to set aside enough time for in-depth conversations on issues that will be divided into different sessions, senior administration officials say. That recalls Biden’s nearly three-hour meeting with Xi before the start of last year’s G-20 summit in Bali.

The officials also noted that this will be Xi’s first trip to the U.S. in six years, and his first to San Francisco since he was a provincial Communist Party secretary.

Victor Cha, former Director for Asian Affairs on the White House’s National Security Council, said organizing such meetings at APEC is easier than at a formal location. But, he said, hammering out talks on summit sidelines is still “a logistics nightmare.”

“China, normally, if they come to United States, they want everything. They want all the pomp and circumstance. They want the highest possible respect that can be paid to them,” Cha said. “That is politically not possible. And so, having APEC in San Francisco solves that problem in the sense that it’s not the official White House that’s hosting the meeting.”

Even informal settings can bring high stakes.

When President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, aiming to ease decades of animosity, he brought a new pair of shoes with rubber soles to climb the Great Wall.

President Barack Obama and Xi didn’t wear ties during their 2013 meeting at Sunnylands, a sumptuous, modernist mansion in Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs, California. It was news then that Obama stayed overnight there while the Chinese delegation returned to a nearby hotel.

Donald Trump and Xi wore dark suits for dinner at Mar-a-Lago four years later, and the meal featured what the then-president called “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake.”

Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund, said that, for the upcoming meeting, Xi’s team likely pushed for a venue away from the APEC site and talks lasting longer than Bali’s.

“The Chinese want a separate summit,” she said.

The Chinese attach importance to the location, which this time may be more like Sunnylands than Anchorage, where top U.S. and Chinese officials held rather tense 2021 talks. Chinese state media might fixate on the weather as a barometer for bilateral relations. Early forecasts are calling for rain with a high in the mid-60s for San Francisco.

Even on-site flowers could be important, as certain choices can symbolize harmony in Chinese culture. Plum blossom is a well-liked flower known in China for persevering amid harshness, while lotuses convey peace in the Chinese language. Chrysanthemums, by contrast, are associated with death.

Xi may expect Biden to greet him upon arrival. His team could also want him and Biden photographed together without staff to convey a personal relationship.

“Chinese officials will want to project to their domestic audience that Xi is received by Biden with dignity and respect,” said Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institute. He suggested that required “imagery of both leaders interacting on a personal basis, beyond the customary handshake in front of a bank of flags in a hotel conference room.”

That could be as simple as a short walk together, Hass said. The Chinese also tend to emphasize food and might push for a meal.

During Nixon’s 1971 visit, a military honor guard greeted him at the airport, but the much-watched series of toasts from both sides came later, only after a shark fin banquet dish was served. China offered a Texas-style barbecue at a luxury Beijing hotel to fete President George H.W. Bush in 1989, but blocked his invitation of Fang Lizhi, then the country’s best-known dissident.

The APEC setting precludes a formal dinner. But lunch is possible. That’s despite Xi scheduling his trips down to the minute and often packing in so much that there’s no time to eat, according to a documentary on its diplomatic principles China released in 2017.

Both sides also always have security concerns. Obama wrote in his memoir of his 2009 China trip that his team was “instructed to leave any non-governmental electronic devices on the plane” and to operate assuming “that our communications were being monitored” and hotel rooms had hidden cameras.

Hillary Clinton’s 1995 Beijing visit turned heads for a different reason when she declared that “human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.” So did Laura Bush’s 2008 trip to the Olympics in Beijing after she stopped in Thailand and visited a refugee camp for people fleeing the government of China-backed Myanmar.

But protocols around U.S.-China leader interactions don’t always have to address espionage threats or human rights matters.

Sasha Obama was 9 and studying Mandarin in grade school when she practiced a few phrases during a 2011 White House welcome ceremony for Chinese President Hu Jintao. When she and her sister, Malia, visited China with their mother, Michelle, on a goodwill tour three years later, the Chinese press dubbed the then-first lady “Mrs. Diplomatic.”

That trip featured a toboggan ride away from the press after a Great Wall visit, and a game of table tennis where Michelle Obama joked that her husband played the game and “thinks he’s better than he really is.” Yet what unfolded felt stiff to some. The write-up in The New York Times carried the headline: “Even With Ping-Pong, a Formal Meeting in China.”

__

Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

The post Biden and Xi are to fulfill subsequent week. There isn’t any element too small to sweat appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO — US agencies on Tuesday offered new details about how Chinese state-sponsored hackers have used publicly known vulnerabilities to target internet service providers and major telecommunications firms around the globe over the last two years.

Taking advantage of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) allows malicious actors backed by Beijing to break into victim accounts and network infrastructure — via a virtual private network or another public-facing application — “without using their own distinctive or identifying malware,” the FBI , the National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in an advisory.

The joint document is the latest effort by the federal government to inform the private sector about the scope of the digital threat posed by China and urge entities to take action to defend themselves.

Last week, FBI director Christopher Wray said China boasts “​​a bigger hacking program than all other nations combined,” warning that Chinese Communist Party leaders are studying the war in Ukraine for lessons about Taiwan. And last year, the US and Western allies attributed a massive assault targeting Microsoft Exchange servers to Chinese state actors.

“Businesses may understand that they’ve had intrusion, or they’ve stopped an attempted intrusion, but they often can’t weave together the pieces. This advisory is intended to bring together the pieces,” NSA Director of Cybersecurity Rob Joyce told The Record during a sit-down interview on the sidelines of the RSA conference.

The latest advisory details how hackers rely on compromised servers, or “hop points,” from China-based IP addresses in order to register and eventually gain access to email accounts, host command and control domains and otherwise interface with victimized networks.

After they have distanced themselves, state-linked actors go on to exploit infrastructure in internet providers and telecoms, as well as small home office and business routers manufactured by key industry providers, giving them the ability to target and attack at scale.

The perpetrators employ a variety of methods to hide their presence, bypass security features and configure victim networks to suit their needs, including pilfering data, enabling web shells for persistent access or routing data to infrastructure they themselves control.

“This work is building the foundation that they can do all of their objectives,” according to Joyce.

This is their plumbing.

not ‘holding back’

The technical advisory provides a list of the top 16 network devices most commonly used to propagate breaches, including three from telecom giant Cisco and four from data-storage hardware vendor QNAP.

However, it doesn’t name any threat actors or groups who have carried out intrusions or cite instances where the weaknesses were used to wreak havoc on a system or network.

Joyce said the agencies didn’t name specific offenses because it “doesn’t help you stop the tradecraft.”

“The intent here is to make sure that people understand how to recognize, and stop, that tradecraft,” he said. “We’ve got tradecraft that’s been going since at least 2020. We’re looking to break that cycle and we need the providers to understand that threat to break it. Knowing which APT number did it doesn’t help you break the cycle.”

Joyce also defended excluding past breaches, arguing that “some of the providers will recognize themselves inside” the laundry list of known vulnerabilities.

The advisory makes a number of suggestions to cauterize the weaknesses, including many of which have become staples of the government’s digital warnings — like keeping systems patched and updated, enabling multi-factor authentication and performing regular data backups.

Joyce insisted that the exposures cataloged in the document, all of which have been mitigated, represent a comprehensive accounting of known CVEs and that the government is not “holding back” about ongoing exploits or other potential security gaps.

The longtime NSA official also predicted how Beijing would react to the latest advisory.

“I am highly confident that they will yet again deny that they do this type of activity,” Joyce told The Record, noting Beijing has a “long track record” of conducting intrusions and massive digital espionage campaigns.

“We will continue to bring this pressure forward because it needs to stop,” he said.

Martin is a senior cybersecurity reporter for The Record. He spent the last five years at Politico, where he covered Congress, the Pentagon and the US intelligence community, and was a driving force behind the publication’s cybersecurity newsletter.

The post US businesses element the digital ‘plumbing’ utilized by Chinese language state-sponsored hackers appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO — US agencies on Tuesday offered new details about how Chinese state-sponsored hackers have used publicly known vulnerabilities to target internet service providers and major telecommunications firms around the globe over the last two years.

Taking advantage of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) allows malicious actors backed by Beijing to break into victim accounts and network infrastructure — via a virtual private network or another public-facing application — “without using their own distinctive or identifying malware,” the FBI , the National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in an advisory.

The joint document is the latest effort by the federal government to inform the private sector about the scope of the digital threat posed by China and urge entities to take action to defend themselves.

Last week, FBI director Christopher Wray said China boasts “​​a bigger hacking program than all other nations combined,” warning that Chinese Communist Party leaders are studying the war in Ukraine for lessons about Taiwan. And last year, the US and Western allies attributed a massive assault targeting Microsoft Exchange servers to Chinese state actors.

“Businesses may understand that they’ve had intrusion, or they’ve stopped an attempted intrusion, but they often can’t weave together the pieces. This advisory is intended to bring together the pieces,” NSA Director of Cybersecurity Rob Joyce told The Record during a sit-down interview on the sidelines of the RSA conference.

The latest advisory details how hackers rely on compromised servers, or “hop points,” from China-based IP addresses in order to register and eventually gain access to email accounts, host command and control domains and otherwise interface with victimized networks.

After they have distanced themselves, state-linked actors go on to exploit infrastructure in internet providers and telecoms, as well as small home office and business routers manufactured by key industry providers, giving them the ability to target and attack at scale.

The perpetrators employ a variety of methods to hide their presence, bypass security features and configure victim networks to suit their needs, including pilfering data, enabling web shells for persistent access or routing data to infrastructure they themselves control.

“This work is building the foundation that they can do all of their objectives,” according to Joyce.

This is their plumbing.

Not ‘holding back’

The technical advisory provides a list of the top 16 network devices most commonly used to propagate breaches, including three from telecom giant Cisco and four from data-storage hardware vendor QNAP.

However, it doesn’t name any threat actors or groups who have carried out intrusions or cite instances where the weaknesses were used to wreak havoc on a system or network.

Joyce said the agencies didn’t name specific offenses because it “doesn’t help you stop the tradecraft.”

“The intent here is to make sure that people understand how to recognize, and stop, that tradecraft,” he said. “We’ve got tradecraft that’s been going since at least 2020. We’re looking to break that cycle and we need the providers to understand that threat to break it. Knowing which APT number did it doesn’t help you break the cycle.”

Joyce also defended excluding past breaches, arguing that “some of the providers will recognize themselves inside” the laundry list of known vulnerabilities.

The advisory makes a number of suggestions to cauterize the weaknesses, including many of which have become staples of the government’s digital warnings — like keeping systems patched and updated, enabling multi-factor authentication and performing regular data backups.

Joyce insisted that the exposures cataloged in the document, all of which have been mitigated, represent a comprehensive accounting of known CVEs and that the government is not “holding back” about ongoing exploits or other potential security gaps.

The longtime NSA official also predicted how Beijing would react to the latest advisory.

“I am highly confident that they will yet again deny that they do this type of activity,” Joyce told The Record, noting Beijing has a “long track record” of conducting intrusions and massive digital espionage campaigns.

“We will continue to bring this pressure forward because it needs to stop,” he said.

Martin is a senior cybersecurity reporter for The Record. He spent the last five years at Politico, where he covered Congress, the Pentagon and the US intelligence community, and was a driving force behind the publication’s cybersecurity newsletter.

The post US businesses element the digital ‘plumbing’ utilized by Chinese language state-sponsored hackers appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO — US agencies on Tuesday offered new details about how Chinese state-sponsored hackers have used publicly known vulnerabilities to target internet service providers and major telecommunications firms around the globe over the last two years.

Taking advantage of common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) allows malicious actors backed by Beijing to break into victim accounts and network infrastructure — via a virtual private network or another public-facing application — “without using their own distinctive or identifying malware,” the FBI , the National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in an advisory.

The joint document is the latest effort by the federal government to inform the private sector about the scope of the digital threat posed by China and urge entities to take action to defend themselves.

Last week, FBI director Christopher Wray said China boasts “​​a bigger hacking program than all other nations combined,” warning that Chinese Communist Party leaders are studying the war in Ukraine for lessons about Taiwan. And last year, the US and Western allies attributed a massive assault targeting Microsoft Exchange servers to Chinese state actors.

“Businesses may understand that they’ve had intrusion, or they’ve stopped an attempted intrusion, but they often can’t weave together the pieces. This advisory is intended to bring together the pieces,” NSA Director of Cybersecurity Rob Joyce told The Record during a sit-down interview on the sidelines of the RSA conference.

The latest advisory details how hackers rely on compromised servers, or “hop points,” from China-based IP addresses in order to register and eventually gain access to email accounts, host command and control domains and otherwise interface with victimized networks.

After they have distanced themselves, state-linked actors go on to exploit infrastructure in internet providers and telecoms, as well as small home office and business routers manufactured by key industry providers, giving them the ability to target and attack at scale.

The perpetrators employ a variety of methods to hide their presence, bypass security features and configure victim networks to suit their needs, including pilfering data, enabling web shells for persistent access or routing data to infrastructure they themselves control.

“This work is building the foundation that they can do all of their objectives,” according to Joyce.

This is their plumbing.

Not ‘holding back’

The technical advisory provides a list of the top 16 network devices most commonly used to propagate breaches, including three from telecom giant Cisco and four from data-storage hardware vendor QNAP.

However, it doesn’t name any threat actors or groups who have carried out intrusions or cite instances where the weaknesses were used to wreak havoc on a system or network.

Joyce said the agencies didn’t name specific offenses because it “doesn’t help you stop the tradecraft.”

“The intent here is to make sure that people understand how to recognize, and stop, that tradecraft,” he said. “We’ve got tradecraft that’s been going since at least 2020. We’re looking to break that cycle and we need the providers to understand that threat to break it. Knowing which APT number did it doesn’t help you break the cycle.”

Joyce also defended excluding past breaches, arguing that “some of the providers will recognize themselves inside” the laundry list of known vulnerabilities.

The advisory makes a number of suggestions to cauterize the weaknesses, including many of which have become staples of the government’s digital warnings — like keeping systems patched and updated, enabling multi-factor authentication and performing regular data backups.

Joyce insisted that the exposures cataloged in the document, all of which have been mitigated, represent a comprehensive accounting of known CVEs and that the government is not “holding back” about ongoing exploits or other potential security gaps.

The longtime NSA official also predicted how Beijing would react to the latest advisory.

“I am highly confident that they will yet again deny that they do this type of activity,” Joyce told The Record, noting Beijing has a “long track record” of conducting intrusions and massive digital espionage campaigns.

“We will continue to bring this pressure forward because it needs to stop,” he said.

Martin is a senior cybersecurity reporter for The Record. He spent the last five years at Politico, where he covered Congress, the Pentagon and the US intelligence community, and was a driving force behind the publication’s cybersecurity newsletter.

The post US companies element the digital ‘plumbing’ utilized by Chinese language state-sponsored hackers appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.