Chris Wray Warns Congress that CCP Hackers Are Trying to ‘Wreak Havoc’ & Cause Harm to US

On Wednesday, FBI Director Chris Wray testified before the House Select CCP Committee about Chinese cyberthreats.

Wray Admits that China has committed an Act of War on America by targeting American critical civilian infrastructure.

• FBI and other agencies have identified hundreds of routers taken over by the PRC hacking group known as “Volt Typhoon” via Malware

• This malware allowed China to hide pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation against critical infrastructure, such as communications, transportation, energy, water sectors… steps China was taking to destroy or degrade civilian infrastructure.

• The PRC has a bigger hacking campaign than all other nations combined

• China’s hacking program outnumbers US Cyber personnel 50 to 1, even if all FBI Cyber personal were compared to China.

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TRANSCRIPT

Thank you, Chairman Gallagher, Ranking Member, Raja Krishnamoorthi and to the members of the Select Committee for inviting me here to testify today to discuss the FBI’s ongoing efforts to protect our nation from actions taken by the Chinese government, that threaten Americans’ safety and prosperity.

Before I go on, I do want to make very clear that my comments today are not about the Chinese people and certainly not about Chinese-Americans, who contribute much to our country and are frankly often the victims of Chinese Communist Party aggression, themselves.

Rather, when I talk about the threat posed by China, I mean the government of China, in particular, led by the CCP. The CCP’s dangerous actions, China’s multi-pronged assault on our national and economic security make it the defining threat of our generation.

Now, when I described this CCP as a threat to American safety a moment ago, I meant that quite literally. There has been far too little public focus on the fact that PRC hackers are targeting our critical infrastructure, our water treatment plants, our electrical grid, our oil and natural gas pipelines, our transportation systems and the risk that poses to every American requires our attention now.

China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real world harm to American citizens and communities, if and when China decides the time has come to strike. They’re not focused just on political and military targets. We can see from where they position themselves across civilian infrastructure that low-blows aren’t just a possibility, in the event of a conflict, low blows against civilians are part of China’s plan.

But the PRC’s cyber onslaught goes way beyond prepositioning for future conflict. Today – and literally every day – they’re actively attacking our economic security, engaging in wholesale theft of our innovation and our personal and corporate data.

Nor is cyber the only PRC threat we face. The PRC cyber threat is made vastly more dangerous by the way they knit cyber into a whole-of-government campaign against us. They recruit human sources to target our businesses, using insiders to steal the same kinds of innovation and data that their hackers are targeting, while also engaging in corporate deception, hiding Beijing’s hand in transactions, joint ventures and investments to do the same.

And they don’t just hit our security and economy, they target our freedoms, reaching inside our borders across America to silence, coerce and threaten some of our citizens and residents. But I can assure you, the FBI is laser-focused on the threat posed by Beijing.

We’ve got cyber, counterintelligence, criminal and WMD experts, just an name a few to offending against it and we’re working in partnership with the private sector, partnership with our allies abroad and partnership at all levels of the US government, especially the NSA Cybercommand, CISA and ONCD, whose leaders I’m honored to be here with today.

In fact, 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”.

The Volt Typhoon malware enabled China to hide, among other things pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation against critical infrastructure, like our communications, energy, transportation and water sectors.

Steps China was taking, in other words to find and prepare to destroy or grade the civilian critical infrastructure that keeps us safe and prosperous.

And let’s be clear: cyber threats to our critical infrastructure represent real world threats to our physical safety, so working with our partners, the FBI ran a court authorized on network operation to shut down Volt Typhoon and the access it enabled.

Now, this operation was was an important step but there’s a whole lot more to do and we need your help to do it. To quantify what we’re up against, the PRC has a bigger hacking program 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 cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1, so, as we sit here while important budget discussions are underway, I will note that this is a time to be keeping ahead of the threat by investing in our capabilities, rather than cutting them.

We need to ensure that we sustain and build on the gains that we’ve made, that have enabled us to take actions, like the Volt Typhoon operation I just mentioned. The budgets that emerge from discussions underway now will dictate what kind of resources we have ready in 2027, a year that, as this committee knows all too well the CCP has circled on its calendar – and that year will be on us before you know it.

As I’ve described, the PRC is already today putting their pieces in place. I do not want those watching today to think we can’t protect ourselves but I do want the American People to know that we cannot afford to sleep on this danger, as a government and a society.

We’ve got to remain vigilant and actively defend against the threat that Beijing poses, otherwise China has shown it will make us pay.

Thank you and look forward to today’s discussion, thank you.

Contributed by Alexandra Bruce

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