China accuses US of cyberattack against National Time Service Center

Chinese authorities have blamed the United States for a “major cyberattack” against the National Time Service Center (NTSC), a research institute that’s responsible for generating, maintaining, and broadcasting standard time in China.

According to a state-controlled Chinese news outlet, China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) claims on WeChat that it has “irrefutable evidence” that the National Security Agency (NSA) attempted to “steal state secrets and conduct cyber espionage” against the NTSC.

On March 25th, 2022, the NSA allegedly exploited a vulnerability in a foreign mobile phone brand’s text messaging service to hijack the phones of several NTSC staff members and loot sensitive data stored on the devices.

From April 2023, the US intelligence agency supposedly repeatedly used stolen login credentials to hack into the NTSC’s computers to map the institute’s network infrastructure.

China’s Ministry of State Security goes on by suggesting that between August 2023 and June 2024, the NSA carried out “high-intensity cyberattacks” against multiple internal network systems of the time center.

The National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team (CNCERT) conducted a comprehensive investigation of the cyberattack and published a technical analysis to illustrate how the NSA exploited the flaw.

The MSS accuses the US of “continuously carrying out cyberattacks targeting China, Southeast Asia, Europe, and South America,” while “coercing other countries to hype up so-called ‘Chinese hacker attacks.’”

“Ironclad facts have proven that the US is the true ‘Matrix’ and the greatest source of chaos in cyberspace,” Beijing added.

An NSA spokesperson told Recorded Future News the agency doesn’t confirm or deny allegations in the media regarding its operations.

“Our core focus is countering foreign malign activities persistently targeting American interests, and we will continue to defend against adversaries wishing to threaten us,” he added.

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