China Blames Us For Cyber Break In, Claims America Is World’s Biggest Bitburglar

China has blamed the US for a “major cyberattack” against its National Time Service Center, alleging it could have disrupted the country’s communications, financial, and transportation networks, and even caused power outages.

In a Sunday WeChat post, the Ministry of State Security (MSS) said it uncovered “irrefutable evidence” that the US National Security Agency (NSA) exploited a security flaw in a foreign mobile phone brand’s messaging service to hijack phones and steal sensitive data belonging to China’s National Time Service Center employees beginning in late March 2022, according to a Google translation of the Chinese-language statement.

China’s intelligence service also alleged that, in April 2023, the NSA used stolen credentials to break into the Time Service Center’s computers and snoop around on its networks. It accused the American spy agency of deploying a “cyber warfare platform” and activating “42 specialized cyberattack weapons to launch a high-intensity cyberattack against multiple internal NTSC network systems” between August 2023 and June 2024.

“The NSA also attempted to penetrate the high-precision ground-based timing system, potentially disabling it,” according to the MSS, which added that Beijing’s national security authorities ultimately thwarted the attack.

China’s Time Service Center, located in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, provides high-precision timing services to the nation’s government and critical infrastructure sectors.

The cyberattack accusations come amid trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, and follow multiple reports of Chinese government spies breaking into US networks including those belonging to the US Air Force, American oil and gas companies, and “numerous” enterprise networks. 

Last week, security firm F5 said “highly sophisticated nation-state” hackers – reportedly Beijing-backed snoops – broke into its network and stole BIG-IP source code, undisclosed vulnerability details, and some customer configuration data.

In its Sunday post, the MSS accused US spy agencies of “continuously carrying out cyberattacks targeting China, Southeast Asia, Europe, and South America,” while “coercing other countries to hype up so-called ‘Chinese hacker attacks.'”

“Ironclad facts have proven that the US is the true ‘Matrix’ and the greatest source of chaos in cyberspace,” Beijing added, but did not provide any proof to back up its latest allegations.

The NSA did not immediately respond to The Register‘s request for comment. ®

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