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We are facing a typhoon of Chinese cyberattacks

The Wall Street Journal reports today about a massive Chinese cyberattack on US broadband suppliers:

The hacking campaign, called Salt Typhoon...is the latest in a series of incursions that U.S. investigators have linked to China in recent years.

....Last week, U.S. officials said they had disrupted...a China-based hacking group called Flax Typhoon. And in January, federal officials disrupted Volt Typhoon, yet another China-linked campaign that has sought to quietly infiltrate a swath of U.S. critical infrastructure.

OK, I get the "typhoon" part. Destructive storm, Asian origin, etc. But what's with salt, flax, and volt?

23 thoughts on “We are facing a typhoon of Chinese cyberattacks

      1. Josef

        I thought that for volt. The other two are a bit more curious. Flax for some sort of ag infrastructure? Salt for salt mines? Those seem like a stretch though.

  1. bradgranath

    This is a Microsoft thing.

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-xdr/microsoft-threat-actor-naming

    Each country gets a Weather Event Noun and 'Typhoon' does indeed = China.

    Each individual hacking group is given an adjective preceding the Weather Noun, to differentiate different techniques and targets.

    In addition to Salt, Flax, and Volt, there are also Violet, Raspberry, Gingham, and Nylon among many others.

    I think my favorites are Pumpkin Sandstorm out of Iran, and international organized crime's Spandex Tempest.

  2. Martin Stett

    So they paralyze the US economy and . . . .what?
    As in who do they think is going to buy all that stuff being churned out of Chinese factories?
    Viet Nam?

    1. Crissa

      This is why it's daft to think this has alot of national backing.

      That doesn't mean it doesn't, just that personal greed is proa more likely source.

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