State-sponsored Chinese actors targeted U.S. oil and gas pipeline companies in a spearphishing and intrusion campaign between 2011 and 2013, a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory, coauthored by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said this week. Overall, the U.S. government identified and tracked 23 U.S. natural gas pipeline operators targeted from 2011 to 2013 in this spearphishing and intrusion campaign. Of the known targeted entities, 13 were confirmed compromises, 3 were near misses, and 7 had an unknown depth of intrusion. The U.S. is attributing these attacks to “Chinese state-sponsored actors,” this week’s report showed. These actors specifically targeted America’s pipeline infrastructure for the purpose of holding U.S. pipeline infrastructure at risk, CISA and FBI said. The ultimate goal of those attacks was to help China develop cyberattack capabilities against U.S. pipelines to physically damage pipelines or disrupt pipeline operations. China’s foreign […]