China’s hidden threat to millions of Aussies revealed: ‘Actively taking place’

Imagine waking up to darkness. The lights won’t turn on, your phone has no signal, trains aren’t running and card payments have stopped working.

It’s the kind of scenario Australia’s top spy has warned could unfold if a foreign government successfully sabotaged the critical infrastructure millions of Australians rely on every day.

And Chinese government-backed hackers are already probing Australian networks.

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess has revealed Chinese hackers have tested the nation’s telecommunications and critical infrastructure networks, potentially searching for weaknesses that could be exploited during a future crisis.

Cyber security experts have told Yahoo News Australia a major conflict in the Indo-Pacific could trigger a serious Chinese cyber campaign against Australia, warning the groundwork for such an attack could be laid years before a single shot is fired.

Rather than immediately stealing money or bringing networks crashing down, state-backed hackers can quietly get inside critical systems, search for weaknesses and learn how they operate while trying to avoid detection.

Then they wait.

Dr Adam Bartley, from RMIT University’s Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation, told Yahoo News Australia it’s known as “pre-positioning” and something the country should already be addressing.

“The working assumption in Australia should be that this is actively taking place,” he said.

Bartley said a serious Chinese cyber campaign would involve “prepositioning in critical systems, identifying vulnerabilities, and observing our processes and operations” ahead of a potential future conventional conflict.

There is already evidence of what that strategy can look like overseas.

Chinese state-backed hacking group Volt Typhoon infiltrated critical infrastructure in the United States, with authorities finding the hackers had maintained access to some compromised systems for years.

Australia’s cyber intelligence agency has warned critical infrastructure here could be vulnerable to similar activity.

Do you have a hacking story? Contact newsroomau@yahoonews.com

Why would Australia be targeted?

Experts who spoke to Yahoo News Australia stressed a crippling Chinese cyber attack on Australia was not considered imminent.

Instead, the threat becomes significantly more serious in the event of a major confrontation in the Indo-Pacific.

Alexander Leslie, a senior government affairs adviser at global cyber threat intelligence firm Recorded Future, told Yahoo News Australia cyber operations could begin before Australians saw any obvious signs of a wider conflict.

Recorded Future tracks state-backed hacking groups and other cyber threats around the world, with its specialist research arm Insikt Group analysing threats posed by governments and cybercriminals.

“From a threat intelligence perspective, the clearest risk to Australia is that any major Indo-Pacific crisis would develop a cyber dimension before its military consequences were fully visible,” Leslie said.

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Insikt Group has assessed China would almost certainly use cyber operations during a Taiwan landing or blockade to seek information dominance, including against military and civilian systems and critical infrastructure.

For Australia, its level of involvement in any wider regional confrontation would be important in determining the scale of the threat.

Bartley said attempts could potentially target secure military facilities and institutions operated by the United States on Australian soil, although successfully penetrating those systems would likely be considerably more difficult.

What would Australians actually notice during a cyber attack?

For ordinary Australians, the first sign of an attack could simply be the things they rely on every day, suddenly no longer working.

Burgess has warned people could be unable to call Triple-000, businesses could struggle to process payments and transport networks could be disrupted.

In a more serious scenario, Australia’s spy chief has warned a hostile nation could potentially take down telecommunications networks, cut electricity, affect drinking water or cripple the financial system.

Bartley said the potential targets stretched across energy, transport, water and data infrastructure, while Australia’s reliance on space-based systems created another significant vulnerability.

Satellites underpin everything from communications to financial transactions, meaning an attack in space could quickly cause disruption on the ground.

“The average Australian would very quickly see and feel the impact,” Bartley told Yahoo News Australia.

Despite the potentially severe consequences, Bartley stressed a destructive Chinese cyber attack was not an immediate threat facing Australians.

“I don’t think Australians need to take this threat seriously now. Indeed, cyber crime is much more impacting for the everyday Australian,” he said.

But that calculation could change dramatically if a major conflict erupted in East Asia and Australia became involved.

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