China Remains Embedded in US Energy Networks 'for the Purpose of Taking It Down'

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Plus 3 new goon squads targeted critical infrastructure last year:

Three new threat groups began targeting critical infrastructure last year, while a well-known Beijing-backed crew - Volt Typhoon - continued to compromise cellular gateways and routers, and then break into US electric, oil, and gas companies in 2025, according to Dragos' annual threat report published on Tuesday.

Dragos specializes in operational technology (OT) security, and as such, its customers include energy, water, manufacturing, transportation, and other critical industries. Unsurprisingly, these are key sectors for Chinese, Russian, and other government-linked cyber operatives to hack for espionage and warfare purposes.

In its yearly cybersecurity report, Dragos said state-sponsored crews haven't let up on their attempts to compromise America's critical infrastructure, with three new OT-focused threat groups joining the fray. This brings the total number worldwide to 26, and of these, 11 were active in 2025.

Additionally, an existing group that Dragos tracks as Voltzite and is "highly correlated" with Volt Typhoon, according to Dragos CEO Robert M. Lee, kept up its intrusion activities last year. This is the Beijing goon squad that the US government has accused of burrowing into critical American networks for years and readying destructive cyberattacks against those targets.

In 2025, Voltzite continued embedding its malware inside strategic American utilities "to maintain long-term persistence," Lee said.

"They [Voltzite] weren't just getting in and getting access - they were getting inside the control loop" system that manages utilities' industrial processes, Lee said in a briefing with reporters, adding that the PRC-backed crew's primary focus is causing future disruption.

"Nothing that they were taking was useful for intellectual property," Lee said. "Everything they were doing and learning was only useful for disrupting or causing destruction at those sites. Voltzite was embedded in that infrastructure for the purpose of taking it down."

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