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Suspected Chinese Hackers Exploited Microsoft Vulnerabilities to Breach Government Email Systems

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Hackers believed to be linked to China have exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft software to breach the email systems at over two dozen organizations, including some U.S. government agencies, as part of a suspected cyber-espionage campaign.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the hackers, identified as “Storm-0558,” exploited a security weakness in Microsoft’s cloud-computing environment to gain access to sensitive computer networks. This development is especially concerning for officials and security researchers, as it is seen as part of a larger espionage campaign that could have compromised valuable U.S. government information.

“Last month, U.S. government safeguards identified an intrusion in Microsoft’s cloud security, which affected unclassified systems. Officials immediately contacted Microsoft to find the source and vulnerability in their cloud service,” said Adam Hodge, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. He added, “We continue to hold the procurement providers of the U.S. government to a high security threshold.”

The full extent and severity of the incident, including the specific institutions and individuals affected, are not yet known. The incident has underscored the growing concerns among senior Western intelligence officials about the ability of Chinese hackers to orchestrate stealthy attacks that can evade detection for years. (Read more from “Suspected Chinese Hackers Exploited Microsoft Vulnerabilities to Breach Government Email Systems” HERE)

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China’s Military Is Leading the World in Brain ‘Neurostrike’ Weapons: Report

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China‘s People’s Liberation Army is developing high-technology weapons designed to disrupt brain functions and influence government leaders or entire populations, according to a report by three open-source intelligence analysts.

The weapons can be used to directly attack or control brains using microwave or other directed energy weapons in handheld guns or larger weapons firing electromagnetic beams, adding that the danger of China‘s brain warfare weapons prior to or during a conflict is no longer theoretical.

“Unknown to many, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have established themselves as world leaders in the development of neurostrike weapons,” according to the 12-page report, “Enumerating, Targeting and Collapsing the Chinese Communist Party’s Neurostrike Program.” A copy of the study was obtained by The Washington Times.

The U.S. Commerce Department in December 2021 imposed sanctions on China‘s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 related entities the department said were using “biotechnology processes to support Chinese military end-uses and end-users, to include purported brain-control weaponry.” (Read more from “China’s Military Is Leading the World in Brain ‘Neurostrike’ Weapons: Report” HERE)

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‘We’re Not Even Raising the Bar’: House Intel Chair Says U.S. Isn’t Keeping Pace With China’s Buildup of Nuclear Weapons

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Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio said Wednesday that the Biden administration wasn’t “even raising the bar” to address China’s nuclear weapons buildup.

“On the left, their philosophy has been, ‘we don’t want missile defense because if we do it will make others want to build more nuclear weapons,’” Turner, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, a former Trump administration official. “Unfortunately, we have not done missile defense and that is exactly what others did anyway, they built more nuclear weapons.”

“Not only was North Korea not nuclear at the time when Reagan called us to the challenge, and Iran certainly didn’t have a nuclear weapons program, but China is tripling its nuclear weapons pointed at the United States and we’re not even raising the bar as to what our missile defense capabilities are,” Turner continued.

China has been expanding its nuclear capabilities, including an effort to increase its force of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the Wall Street Journal reported in April 2022. The buildup includes silos for 100 DF-41 ICBMs, each of which can carry up to ten warheads and hit targets up to 15,000 kilometers away, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. (Read more from “‘We’re Not Even Raising the Bar’: House Intel Chair Says U.S. Isn’t Keeping Pace With China’s Buildup of Nuclear Weapons” HERE)

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Wuhan Lab Researcher Says COVID Engineered as Bioweapon

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A researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology claimed that China deliberately developed the COVID-19 virus as a “bioweapon.”

Researcher Chao Shao said during an interview with reporter and activist Jennifer Zeng this week that his fellow lab researchers were given different strains of coronaviruses and asked to determine which is most effective for spreading across various species.

Shao further claimed that the whereabouts of several of his colleagues could not be determined during the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan and that some of them were sent to hotels where international athletes were living to “check the health or hygiene conditions.”

Shao said he thinks his colleagues were sent to the hotels to spread the coronavirus, the Jerusalem Post reported:

Chao Shao suspected that these actions were unrelated to virology research and suggested that they were potentially involved in spreading the virus.

(Read more from “Wuhan Lab Researcher Says COVID Engineered as Bioweapon” HERE)

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Report: Biden Spills ‘Sensitive’ Intelligence About China Spy Balloon to Campaign Donors

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President Joe Biden spilled “sensitive” United States intelligence about China to campaign donors at a recent event in California, according to a report.

At the fundraiser in California, Biden revealed to attendees what the U.S. intelligence agencies had learned about the Chinese spy balloon incident earlier this year, reportedly surprising U.S. officials.

The New York Times reported that at the fundraiser, Biden “set off into what appeared to be an unplanned riff” about the spy balloon incident, “revealing what United States intelligence agencies had learned about the internal confusion in Beijing during the incident.”

According to the Times, Biden told about 130 guests in attendance at the fundraiser: “The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it is he didn’t know it was there.”

“No, I’m serious. That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened,” Biden said. (Read more from “Report: Biden Spills ‘Sensitive’ Intelligence About China Spy Balloon to Campaign Donors” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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Biden Calls Xi a Dictator After U.S.-China Talks

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President Joe Biden called Chinese leader Xi Jinping a “dictator” on Tuesday while recalling the spy balloon incident after State Secretary Antony Blinken concluded his visit to Beijing to stabilize U.S.-China ties.

Biden said the recent incident with the Chinese spy balloon, which was shot down by the U.S. military after being blown off course over the United States, had caused “great embarrassment” for Xi.

“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn’t know it was there,” Biden said at a fundraiser event in California.

“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course,” he added.

His comments came just a day after Blinken and Xi had a “robust conversation” in Beijing on June 19, during which both sides agreed on the need to stabilize the tense relations between the two powers. (Read more from “Biden Calls Xi a Dictator After U.S.-China Talks” HERE)

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Blinken Bends the Knee to Xi in Beijing Visit, Fails to Secure Key Military Communication Deal

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a long-anticipated trip to China in mid-June, making several key concessions to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and failing to secure a key military communication agreement.

Blinken left for China on Friday and will make his return Wednesday, but has already met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Director of the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Office Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang. Blinken made the trip with the goal of “stabilizing” U.S.-China relations and repeatedly emphasized the Biden administration was not seeking conflict with Beijing.

Blinken said one of his foremost goals was to open up a line of military-to-military direct communication for times of crisis. Despite the priority team Biden placed on this request, the CCP once again turned down the offer, Blinken said Monday.

China has rebuffed Biden’s offers for more direct military communications multiple times in recent months, including turning down a recent offer for high-level meetings with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. (Read more from “Blinken Bends the Knee to Xi in Beijing Visit, Fails to Secure Key Military Communication Deal” HERE)

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China’s Burgeoning AI Supremacy Threatens American Stability

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During his opening remarks before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, Sam Altman, the chief executive of the artificial intelligence start-up OpenAI, confirmed what many-a-Luddite have long feared: AI is here to stay, and its proliferation is unavoidable.

Expressing his belief that AI could be used to empower humanity but without guide rails, Altman said its unregulated use could wreak havoc: “OpenAI was founded on the belief that artificial intelligence has the potential to improve nearly every aspect of our lives, but also that it creates serious risks.”

AI, like every other major technological development, presents us with major questions about man’s relationship with nature and how we interface with reality. AI is no exception to this; if anything, it further complicates man’s relationship with the metaphysical, but that’s for another time. In terms of our immediate physical reality, beyond questions of societal redundancy through economic displacement, artificial intelligence presents challenges about the rapidly evolving geopolitical conditions the U.S. is not prepared to adequately address.

In particular, the ongoing digital arms race exposes the U.S. as lacking a cohesive national vision for the integration and utilization of artificial intelligence when compared to Red China’s national strategy. . .

China poses the greatest threat to American interests abroad — to insist otherwise is either ignorant or naive. In 2016, U.S. Air Force officials and the Obama White House warned that the Chinese Communist Party had an extremely well-funded and methodological approach to developing AI. Very clearly attempting to become the world’s leader in artificial intelligence, it was estimated at the time that China intended to invest $70 billion specifically into artificial intelligence research and recently China both increased the number of AI patents filed within the country by 200 percent and surpassed the U.S. in terms of patents filed in a single year. At the same time, communist China’s theft of American intellectual property has continued unabated as agents of the autocratic state steal sensitive information about American tech corporations and universities. (Read more from “China’s Burgeoning AI Supremacy Threatens American Stability” HERE)

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GOP 2024 Candidates Cautious About Committing U.S. Troops to Taiwan

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Republican presidential candidates are wary of committing to sending U.S. forces to Taiwan in the wake of a Chinese attack, telling the Daily Caller that they would not go as far as President Joe Biden’s promise to defend the island nation.

Biden has repeatedly said the U.S. would intervene militarily if China moved against Taiwan, which the Chinese communist government considers a rebel province. The White House has stressed that Biden’s remarks do not represent a departure from America’s longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan and that the U.S. still adheres to the “One China Policy.”

In conversations with the Daily Caller, the campaigns of most Republican presidential candidates did not voice support for sending U.S. troops. Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declined to provide comment. Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott emphasized deterrence. Four GOP hopefuls — Vivek Ramaswamy, Larry Elder, Mike Pence and Asa Hutchinson — said directly that they would be open to potentially sending the U.S. military to defend Taiwan.

Ramaswamy has said he would “intervene militarily so long as the U.S. is still dependent on Taiwan for semiconductors,” but “has not said whether that will be boots on the ground or what that would look like,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy, told the Caller. The conservative entrepreneur has also previously floated the idea of providing Taiwanese civilians with AR-15 rifles and firearms training.

Elder told the Caller that he “would not tie our hands by making a commitment now for a hypothetical situation in the future, but all options would be on the table.” (Read more from “GOP 2024 Candidates Cautious About Committing U.S. Troops to Taiwan” HERE)

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After Initially Crying ‘Inaccurate,’ Biden Admin Confirms China Has Had a Spy Base in Cuba Since at Least 2019

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China has teamed up with a communist ally to spy on the US just 90 miles south of Florida, White House officials confirmed.

The country has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019 as part of an effort to ramp up its spying efforts, a Biden administration official said, noting that the issue has been “ongoing” and predates Biden’s presidency.

The anonymous White House official said that the US intelligence community has known of China’s spying from Cuba for some time, deeming it an “ongoing” matter” that is “not a new development.”

The Biden admin has worked to stop China’s efforts to expand its spy operations and believes some progress has been made through diplomacy and other specified action, the official said.

The existence of the Chinese spy base was confirmed by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, which reported that China and Cuba had reached an agreement in principle to build an electronic eavesdropping station on the island. (Read more from “After Initially Crying ‘Inaccurate,’ Biden Admin Confirms China Has Had a Spy Base in Cuba Since at Least 2019” HERE)

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