Agencies Alert Field to Hidden State-Sponsored Cyberthreat to Networks

U.S. and international cybersecurity authorities released an advisory to help health care and other critical infrastructure organizations identify and protect their networks from a People’s Republic of China state-sponsored group known as Volt Typhoon that uses built-in network administration tools to avoid detection.  

“The government advisory, along with Microsoft’s assessment, indicates this Chinese government-sponsored espionage campaign is pursuing development of capabilities that could disrupt critical communications infrastructure between the United States and Asia region during future crises,” said John Riggi, AHA’s national advisor for cybersecurity and risk. “This does not appear to be a direct threat to U.S. health care at the moment. However, the advisory does serve as a reminder to ensure that emergency management and communication plans are fully integrated with cyber incident response plans, and take into account the potential loss of third-party mission-critical services, including telecommunications and internet services.”