Tech expert warns ‘China has a killswitch on US infrastructure’ – US News – News

Tech expert warns ‘China has a killswitch on US infrastructure' - US News - News

A cybersecurity expert says Chinese products have a ‘killswitch’ and it will affect the US (Image: getty)

A cybersecurity expert warns that China is the biggest technological threat to the United States, as they have the potential to flip the ‘killswitch’ on our electrical infrastructure at any time.

In 2019, the Former Director of National Intelligence under Biden, Dan Coats, put a 42-page-long report on the US intelligence community’s worldwide threat assessment. It stated, “China has the ability to launch cyber attacks that cause localized, temporary, disruptive effects on American critical infrastructure, such as the disruption of a natural gas pipeline for days to weeks in the United States.”

Since then, the United States has carried out a number of investigations on tech imported from China, and numerous reports detail the presence of ‘malicious, mysterious computer codes,’ that can be accessed remotely and used to shut down critical infrastructure, such as natural gas pipelines and electrical grids.

After the report, numerous products have been recalled due to this concern. As recently as May 2025, Reuters reported that experts found these types of codes in products such as power inverters, batteries, heat pumps, and electric vehicle chargers, including materials used to build and power US infrastructure.

Arnie Bellini, co-founder and former CEO of ConnectWise, explains that this is the threat the US should be most worried about, as Chinese tech companies are often interlaced with government officials that belong to the Chinese Communist Party – a government that’s said a number of times their goal is to undermine the US and the West.

EDP SA Solar Farm

Transformers used in grids all over the US have malicious software placed by China (Image: Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Bellini says, “Iran is a great warm up for what we will face from China. It’s the fact that we’re buying equipment from China. We’re already putting it into our infrastructure, which already has the capability to ‘call back’ to Beijing, flip the switch, and turn it off, and we’re putting it in our water supply systems and our electric systems.”

“We’re using them for video surveillance cameras… not good. None of that’s good. So the Chinese manufacturers—I don’t think a lot of people understand exactly how China operates, but it’s very interesting and very simple – It’s like all the large manufacturers, almost all of them, the ones that you’re really buying products from, they’re all partially funded or sponsored by the government.”

“They’ve got government subsidies. They have government officials on their board of directors. And that’s not so strange in a country except for the fact that this is a communist party who has vowed to take down the United States of America. It has no ethics.”

“You cannot believe anything they say. They lie all the time. They cheat and they steal. They’re liars, cheaters, and stealers – their government, their people are wonderful, I love them. The government has been lying, cheating, and stealing from its own people forever.”

“They’ve put all of these built-in booby traps and built-in ‘call to Beijing’ functions in a lot of the stuff that we’re buying.”

Cargo Cranes

Even cargo cranes were found to have spyware placed by Chinese companies (Image: Getty Images)

Reports about products having a kill switch, or spyware, include items like the industrial Robot Dogs from Unitree Go1, ship-to-shore cranes (ZPMC), solar inverters & batteries, bluetooth/Wi-Fi chips (ESP32 by Espressif), surveillance cameras (Hikvision & Dahua), transformers, and electric infrastructure.

For example, security researchers discovered a hidden backdoor in Unitree Robotics’ Go1 robot dogs, made in China, in April of this year. This backdoor is a software feature that secretly allows remote access and control of the robots. When the robot connects to the internet, it automatically establishes a connection to Unitree’s servers using a tunnel service powered by CloudSail, a remote management tool from Zhexi Technology. That backdoor channel allows remote control, camera access, and system access with an API key.

The issue of the power converters is particularly alarming as “kill switches” could allow Beijing to cripple power grids and trigger blackouts across the West. Power inverters are critical devices that convert the direct current (DC) produced by solar panels or wind turbines into alternating current (AC) used by power grids. Those ‘kill switch’ codes have been found in equipment at US solar farms.

In 2023, there was a growing concern among U.S. officials regarding Chinese-made cranes, particularly those manufactured by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co. (ZPMC), which operate at many American ports—including some with military significance, reported the WSJ.

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The cranes are equipped with sophisticated sensors and software to track and manage containers. U.S. officials worry these features could be exploited to monitor the movement of sensitive cargo, including military equipment, giving China insight into U.S. logistics and military operations.

Many of these have been sold off or returned in the last few years due to the security issue. However, Bellini says many of these products are bought or sold by US companies, who don’t want to make a ‘big stink’ about it, so they continue to import these items, which are cost-saving.

Bellini says part of President Donald Trump‘s plan to produce more stateside is to get rid of some of the interference in imported tech. “Thankfully, the Trump administration recognizes this and is doing something about it,” adds Bellini. “We can’t secure America with infrastructure made by our adversaries. Every transformer, crane, or camera built in China is a potential listening device or kill switch. We need a national strategy that builds our own defenses literally and digitally.”

The Department of Homeland Security has a page dedicated to documenting these instances.

Despite precautions and endless investigations, Bellini says this type of digital warfare from China isn’t going away anytime soon. “We’re buying it, right? We’re implementing it ourselves. We’re opening up the gates and we’re rolling in the Trojan horse.”

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