纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英FBI称中国正瞄准美国基础设施意图在冲突中制造混乱

Christopher A. Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, warned on Wednesday that China was ramping up an extensive hacking operation geared at taking down the United States’ power grid, oil pipelines and water systems in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.

美国联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·雷周三警告，中国正在加强进行大规模的黑客攻击行动，目的是在台湾问题一旦引发冲突的情况下破坏美国的电网、石油管道和供水系统。

Mr. Wray, appearing before a House subcommittee on China, offered an alarming assessment of the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts. Its intent is to sow confusion, sap the United States’ will to fight and hamper the American military from deploying resources if the dispute over Taiwan, a major flashpoint between the two superpowers, escalates into a war, he added.

雷在众议院中国问题小组委员会上对中国共产党的行动做出了这番令人震惊的评估。他补充说，中共的意图是制造混乱，削弱美国的战斗意志，并在两个超级大国之间的主要引爆点——台湾争端——升级为战争时，阻碍美军部署资源。

Before his testimony, F.B.I. and Justice Department officials revealed that last month, they had obtained a court order that authorized them to gain access to servers infiltrated by Volt Typhoon, a Beijing-directed hacking network that has targeted a range of critical infrastructure systems, often by infiltrating small businesses, contractors or local government networks.

在他作证之前，联邦调查局和司法部官员透露，上个月，他们获得了一项法庭命令，授权他们访问被“伏特台风”入侵的服务器。伏特台风是一个由中国政府指挥的黑客网络，把一系列关键基础设施系统作为入侵目标，通常是通过入侵小型企业、承包商或地方政府网络。

“China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if or when China decides the time has come to strike,” said Mr. Wray, who pressed the committee to increase funding for the bureau.

“中国的黑客正在对美国的基础设施进行定位，准备在中国决定发动攻击的时候，对美国公民和社区造成破坏和实际伤害。”雷说，他敦促该委员会增加对联邦调查局的拨款。

“Low blows against civilians are part of China’s plan,” he added.

他补充说：“对平民的低程度打击是中国计划的一部分。”

Hackers for Volt Typhoon compromised hundreds of Cisco and NetGear routers, many of them outdated models no longer supported by manufacturer updates or security patches, in an effort to embed an army of sleeper cells that would be activated in a crisis.

伏特台风的黑客入侵了数百台思科和美国网件的路由器，其中许多都是过期型号，制造商不再进行更新或安全补丁支持，黑客的目的是嵌入一支潜伏部队，以便在危机中启动。

In May, U.S. officials warned business, local governments and foreign allies that the group was taking aim at “networks across U.S. critical infrastructure sectors” and was likely to apply the same techniques against other countries.

去年5月，美国官员警告企业、地方政府和外国盟友，该黑客组织正在瞄准“美国关键基础设施部门的网络”，并有可能对其他国家使用同样的技术。

The operation was stopped before it affected the “legitimate functions” of infrastructure agencies and China did not seem to have collected “content information” from the routers.

这一行动在影响基础设施机构的“正常功能”之前就被制止了，中国似乎也没有从路由器中收集到“内容信息”。

The government is informing owners of the equipment, officials said.

官员们说，美国政府正在通知这些设备的所有者。

Speaking to reporters a day earlier, Gen Paul M. Nakasone, the director of the National Security Agency and the head of Cyber Command, said his organizations were working with partners to better understand what China was doing with the Volt Typhoon intrusions on critical infrastructure. “We have found the Chinese in our critical infrastructure and that’s just wrong,” he said.

一天前，美国国家安全局局长兼网络司令部司令保罗·中曾根上将在接受记者采访时表示，美国国家安全局正在与合作伙伴协作，以更好地了解中国利用伏特台风入侵关键基础设施的行动。他说：“我们在关键基础设施中发现了中国人的行为痕迹，他们这样是不对的。”

In his testimony, Mr. Wray said a major hurdle in countering Chinese hacking operations was the reluctance of small business owners and local governments to inform the F.B.I. of suspicious activity on their networks, which could “prevent the attack from metastasizing to other sectors and other businesses.”

雷在证词中说，打击中国黑客行动的一个主要障碍是，小企业主和地方政府不愿向联邦调查局通报其网络上的可疑活动，而这可以“防止攻击扩散到其他部门和其他企业”。

Also on Wednesday, the department unsealed an indictment against four Chinese citizens. They are accused of operating a yearslong conspiracy to smuggle electronic components from the United States to Iran, in violation of longstanding sanctions and restrictions on the export of military technology to the Islamic Republic.

同样在周三，联邦调查局公布了对四名中国公民的起诉书。他们被指控实施了一项长达数年的阴谋，从美国向伊朗走私电子元件，违反了长期以来对向这个伊斯兰共和国出口军事技术的制裁和限制。

The suspects, who all live in China, are charged with using front companies to funnel components that could be used to build drones and ballistic missile systems to Iran from 2007 to at least 2020, according to the indictment in Federal District Court in Washington.

根据华盛顿联邦地区法院的起诉书，这些嫌疑人都住在中国，他们被控在2007年到至少2020年期间利用幌子公司向伊朗输送可用于制造无人机和弹道导弹系统的零部件。

As a result, a “vast amount” of U.S. technology was diverted to Iran, prosecutors said. They did not specify the potential harm to national security.

检察官说，“大量”美国技术因此被转移到伊朗。他们没有具体说明对国家安全的潜在危害。

In recent months, the F.B.I. and Justice Department have intensified their warnings about malicious activity by China, Iran and Russia inside the United States. Those include murder-for-hire plots against dissidents, efforts to infiltrate U.S. law enforcement agencies, election interference, intellectual property theft and online breaches like those Mr. Wray and cybersecurity officials identified at the hearing on Wednesday.

近几个月来，联邦调查局和司法部加强了对中国、伊朗和俄罗斯在美国境内从事恶意活动的警告。这些活动包括针对持不同政见者的雇凶杀人计划、试图渗透美国执法机构、干扰选举、盗窃知识产权，以及像雷和网络安全官员在周三听证会上指出的那种网络入侵。

Mr. Wray has for years emphasized the threat from China, describing it as existential.

雷多年来一直强调来自中国的威胁，将其描述为关乎存亡。

“It’s a threat to our economic security — and by extension, to our national security,” Mr. Wray said in 2020.

“这威胁到我们的经济安全，进而威胁到我们的国家安全，”雷在2020年说。

China has often taken aim at the weakest links in the country’s business and government networks, particularly outdated home-office routers that allow them to hack into more sophisticated computer systems, officials said.

官员们说，中国经常瞄准美国商业和政府网络中最薄弱的环节，特别是过时的家庭办公路由器，因为这些路由器使得他们可以入侵更复杂的计算机系统。

The goal is to “induce societal panic” to discourage the United States from supporting Taiwan or more aggressively confronting Beijing on other geopolitical and economic issues, said Jen Easterly, the director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

美国联邦网络安全和基础设施安全局局长珍·伊斯特里表示，这样做的目的是“引起社会恐慌”，阻止美国支持台湾或在其他地缘政治和经济问题上更积极地对抗北京。

Ms. Easterly suggested that officials in Beijing might have been motivated to focus on civilian infrastructure after the 2021 ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline by a Russian hacking collective.

伊斯特里认为，在2021年俄罗斯黑客组织对“殖民管道”公司发起勒索软件攻击之后，北京的官员可能已经开始关注民用基础设施。

“Imagine that on a massive scale — imagine not one pipeline, but many pipelines disrupted,” she said. “Telecommunications going down so people can’t use their cellphone. People start getting sick from polluted water. Trains get derailed.”

“想象一下大规模地发生这种情况——不是一条输油管道，而是许多输油管道中断，”她说。“电信中断，人们无法使用手机。开始因为水污染而生病。火车出轨。”

Beijing has long denied targeting U.S. civilian infrastructure, and senior Chinese officials recently told the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, that they would not influence the outcome of the 2024 election by infiltrating networks.

中国政府长期以来一直否认以美国民用基础设施为目标，中国高级官员最近告诉国家安全顾问杰克·沙利文，他们不会通过渗透网络来影响2024年大选的结果。

American hackers target China’s military and government servers, but have historically avoided the kind of infrastructure attacks directed by Beijing, General Nakasone said in his testimony on Wednesday.

中曾根将军在周三的证词中说，美国黑客会把中国的军事和政府服务器作为目标，但历来避免了中国政府现在指挥的那种基础设施攻击。

“Responsible cyberactors of democracies like our own do not target the civilian infrastructure,” he said. “There’s no reason for them to be in our water. There’s no reason for them to be in our power. This is a decision by an actor to actually focus on civilian targets.”

“在像我们这样的民主国家，负责任的网络行为者不会以民用基础设施为目标，”他说。“他们没有理由进入我们的民用水。他们没有理由进入我们的电力系统。这个决定说明行动者真的要针对民用目标。”