Cyber Smackdown: China vs NSA, Zero-Day Frenzy, and Telecom Hacks Galore!

This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.

Hey, cyber sleuths! Ting here—your go-to for all things China, hacking, and the digital dragon’s mischief. Let’s cut the pleasantries; the past seven days have been a cyber roller coaster, and if you blinked, you missed a wave of hacks, jaw-clenching accusations, and enough zero-days to make your IT team cry.

First, the diplomatic drama: On Tuesday, China went full-throttle accusing the US National Security Agency of hacking the 2025 Asian Winter Games. Harbin police didn’t just hint—they named names: Katheryn A. Wilson, Robert J. Snelling, and Stephen W. Johnson, all allegedly with the NSA Tailored Access Operations crew. China alleges the trio targeted registration and timing systems, aiming for backdoors in event infrastructure and, of course, the sweet honey pot of personal data on athletes and staff. Beijing’s Foreign Ministry didn’t mince words, condemning the attacks as “egregious” and promising to “take necessary measures” to guard China’s digital ramparts. This isn’t just government saber-rattling: a bounty was even placed on the alleged operatives’ heads—classic spy vs. spy, but modernized for the cyber age.

While the political tennis match heats up, another technical threat is ripping through infrastructure. A China-backed threat group—known in the wild as Salt Typhoon, or RedMike—extended its hacking spree, popping at least five telecom providers, including two in the US. Salt Typhoon’s weapon of choice? Unpatched Cisco edge devices, specifically exploiting CVE-2023-20198 and CVE-2023-20273. These privilege escalation vulnerabilities let attackers leapfrog into root access, opening entire networks to compromise. It’s textbook: find old, unpatched hardware, exploit, and pivot—no need for a magic wand, just good timing and a lazy sysadmin. Universities like UCLA and Utah Tech also found themselves in the crosshairs.

But the real zero-day scare of the week is CVE-2025-22457, a new vulnerability in edge network devices. This one’s getting hammered by China-aligned actors who are moving so fast it’s outpacing most patch cycles. Similarly, CVE-2025-3102 is turning WordPress sites into admin playgrounds, with over 100,000 sites at risk. The lesson? Patch or perish.

So what’s the defense playbook? Experts hammer home the basics: don’t delay those updates—patch management is your best friend. Network segmentation and zero-trust access policies can limit the blast radius if the perimeter is breached. Watch for strange logins, monitor for lateral movement, and absolutely enable multi-factor authentication everywhere you can.

Bottom line: Whether it’s state-level accusations or opportunistic hackers, this week proves vigilance isn’t optional. Until next week, stay patched, stay paranoid, and keep your digital dragon-watching glasses on. Ting out.

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