Chinese Cyber Tempo Pivots: Feds Breached, Dell Flaws, and AI Propaganda Psy-Ops Exposed!

This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.

Listeners, it’s Ting with Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch, and this week the Chinese cyber tempo didn’t just tick up—it pivoted. Let’s get straight to the needles in the noise.

CISA’s emergency directive on the new Microsoft Exchange hybrid flaw and the federal judiciary’s confirmed breach of electronic case systems show two pressure points Beijing-linked operators habitually probe: identity federation and trusted cloud pivots. Check Point Research notes the judiciary compromise exposed confidential filings—exactly the kind of intelligence Chinese services value for leverage and situational awareness. The methodology aligns with known PRC tradecraft: gain a toe-hold on-prem, laterally traverse identity infrastructure, then jump into M365 for long-dwell exfiltration.

In parallel, Cisco Talos and the Health-ISAC warned about ReVault flaws in Dell’s ControlVault3 security firmware—over 100 Latitude and Precision models affected. These chip-level issues enable code execution and persistent, OS-surviving implants. For a patient adversary like Volt Typhoon, hardware persistence on executive laptops or engineering workstations is gold for long-term access and credential harvesting. AHA’s bulletin stresses biometric bypass and stealthy persistence—think quiet staging for later operations against critical suppliers.

On the influence and cognitive side, Vanderbilt University’s National Security Institute and the New York Times brought to light internal documents from GoLaxy, a Chinese firm tied to propaganda tooling. GoLaxy reportedly profiled at least 117 sitting U.S. lawmakers and thousands of influencers, using an AI-driven dissemination system dubbed GoPro. Former NSA Director Paul Nakasone highlighted the “speed and scale” edge—this matters because PRC operators increasingly blur cyber and information ops to shape incident response, amplify infrastructure scares, and distract during technical intrusions.

Finance felt it, too. WebProNews, pulling from multiple research outlets, detailed a massive smishing-to-tokenization fraud ring by Chinese-speaking syndicates, provisioning stolen cards into Apple Pay and Google Wallet without hitting bank perimeters. It’s not classic state espionage, but the TTPs—industrialized social engineering, AI-personalized lures, automation at Telegram scale—mirror PRC cybercrime ecosystems that often coexist with state-directed efforts. The takeaway for U.S. security: defenses that assume bank firewalls are the battleground are now strategically misaligned.

Strategically, Brookings flagged the grid’s growing brittleness as AI and clean energy drive digitization, noting recent U.S. attributions of “kill switch” style access in critical infrastructure to China—and Beijing’s denials. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation argued Congress’s Strengthening Cyber Resilience Act wisely builds a CISA-led joint task force focused on Chinese TTPs like Volt Typhoon, but warns not to neglect Russia, Iran, and DPRK. The policy arc is clear: more joint advisories, mandatory reporting in sectors beyond energy, and red-teaming of OT/IT interdependencies.

Tactically, here’s what I recommend now. For identity and cloud: rigorously audit hybrid Exchange and ADFS trust paths; enforce conditional access with device attestation; monitor for anomalous token minting and OAuth consent abuse; rotate and protect signing keys in HSMs. For endpoints: patch Dell ControlVault3 firmware immediately; add firmware integrity checks to EDR baselines; watch for unexpected biometric policy changes and low-level SPI writes. For payments and comms: deploy SMS filtering with real-time number reputation; require stepped-up verification for wallet provisioning; educate staff on high-fidelity smishing tied to help-desk pretexting. For OT and critical infra: segment management networks; disable unused remote...