What is Volt Typhoon? A cybersecurity expert explains the Chinese hackers targeting US critical infrastructure
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Richard Forno, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
(THE CONVERSATION) Volt Typhoon is a Chinese state-sponsored hacker group. The United States government and its primary global intelligence partners, known as the Five Eyes, issued a warning on March 19, 2024, about the group’s activity targeting critical infrastructure.
The warning echoes analyses by the cybersecurity community about Chinese state-sponsored hacking in recent years. As with many cyberattacks and attackers, Volt Typhoon has many aliases and also is known as Vanguard Panda, Bronze Silhouette, Dev-0391, UNC3236, Voltzite and Insidious Taurus. Following these latest warnings, China again denied that it engages in offensive cyberespionage.
Volt Typhoon has compromised thousands of devices around the world since it was publicly identified by security analysts at Microsoft in May 2023. However, some analysts in both the government and cybersecurity...