China Is Strapping ‘Digital Bombs’ to Civilian Infrastructure—Is the US Ready?

Earlier this year, insurance executives gathered in a Times Square conference room to play out a scenario: a Chinese cyberattack knocks out 5,000 US water utilities at once. If you think that’s a far-fetched scenario, think again. WIRED’s Andy Greenberg got rare access to the closed-door war game and walked away with some disturbing conclusions. This week, Brian Barrett sits down to talk with Andy about Volt Typhoon, the Chinese state-sponsored hacking group that’s spent the past three years pre-positioning itself inside American infrastructure.

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Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

Brian Barrett : This is WIRED's Uncanny Valley . I'm Brian Barrett, executive editor. We're on a short break from our usual roundtable for the rest of August. Everybody needs some time off sometimes. But we prepared two special conversations for you. This week, we're diving into something alarming that hasn't happened yet, but could. Earlier this year, about 30 insurance executives stepped into a conference room high above Times Square in Manhattan to simulate what would happen if a group of hackers from China attacked the US water supply. Specifically, the idea was to simulate a Chinese cyberattack that would knock out 5,000 water utilities in the US all at once and to do it under a countdown clock. WIRED senior correspondent Andy Greenberg got a rare invite to this closed door war game, call it Dungeons & Dragons for a national security nightmare. It was designed by a former cybersecurity strategist to test what would happen if and when hackers linked to an infamous Chinese operation called Volt Typhoon finally decide to follow through on groundwork that they've been laying for three years.

Archival audio : This group that's known as Volt Typhoon, this is a state-sponsored Chinese hacking group.

Archival audio : China has secretly stepped up its electronic warfare, deploying what is being called the Volt Typhoon malware throughout the US ecosystem.

Brian Barrett : The result could include burst water mains, evacuated hospitals, insulin shortages. Andy's here to tell us more about what he saw and heard, and why the scariest part might not quite be the hack itself, but what it revealed about who's actually in charge when the water stops. Andy, thanks so much for being here.