This is your Dragon's Code: America Under Cyber Siege podcast.
If you thought the cyber war was just about firewalls and passwords, think again. This week, the digital battlefield exploded with China’s most sophisticated cyber operations yet, and the target was America’s critical infrastructure. According to Google Threat Intelligence Group, a China-linked threat actor called APT24 has been running a three-year espionage campaign using a brand-new malware strain they’re calling BadAudio. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill phishing scam. APT24 started with spearphishing emails pretending to be animal rescue orgs, then moved to watering hole attacks, compromising over 20 legitimate websites to trick Windows users into downloading BadAudio. But the real kicker? They escalated to supply-chain attacks, hijacking a digital marketing company in Taiwan and injecting malicious JavaScript into a widely used library. That meant over 1,000 domains got infected, and they even registered a fake CDN domain to spread the malware further.
BadAudio itself is a nightmare for defenders. It’s heavily obfuscated, uses DLL search order hijacking, and employs control flow flattening to make analysis a nightmare. Once inside, it collects system details, encrypts them, and sends them to a hard-coded C2 server before downloading a final payload—sometimes even Cobalt Strike Beacon. Of the eight samples analyzed, most were flagged by fewer than five security solutions on VirusTotal. That’s how stealthy this thing is.
But that’s not all. The Salt Typhoon group, linked to Chinese intelligence, breached nine U.S. telecom firms, gaining geolocation access to millions of users, including government officials and tech execs. They infiltrated National Guard networks and critical systems, intercepting communications and tracking U.S. personnel. The FCC tried to respond with new cybersecurity mandates, but after a 2-1 vote, they repealed those rules, leaving carriers scrambling.
Government officials and cybersecurity experts agree: China’s cyber capacity is growing fast. They’re using AI tools like ChatGPT for fraud and influence ops, and groups like Volt Typhoon are gaining persistent access to critical infrastructure. The House Homeland Security Committee is now calling on Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to testify about a Chinese AI-led espionage campaign using Claude, which targeted global tech, finance, and government agencies.
Defensive measures are evolving, but the lesson is clear: traditional defenses aren’t enough. We need to focus on supply-chain security, AI-driven threat detection, and international cooperation. As one expert put it, “The cyber domain is no longer just about defending networks; it’s about defending the very fabric of our society.”
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