Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during an interview on Sunday, a week before he steps down, that China has penetrated America’s water treatment plants, electric grid, and other critical civilian infrastructure, and is lying “in wait” for an opportunity to cyberattack at a time and place of its choosing.
Asked on CBS’s 60 Minutes about Chinese penetration of U.S. cyber and infrastructure, Wray said China’s cyber program is the largest in the world and has stolen more of Americans’ personal and corporate data than every nation combined. Then, he added:
But even beyond the cyber theft. There’s another part of the Chinese cyber threat that I think has not gotten the attention publicly that it I think desperately deserves. And that is Chinese government’s pre-positioning on American civilian critical infrastructure. To lie in wait on those networks to be in a position to wreak havoc and can inflict real-world harm at a time and place of their choosing.
Wray said China has already infiltrated malware into critical American infrastructure.
“Things like water treatment plants. We’re talking about transportation systems. We’re talking about targeting of our energy sector, the electric grid, natural gas pipelines. And recently we’ve seen targeting of our telecommunications systems,” he said.
Wray said China has also been listening into Americans’ calls.
CBS News said China has gathered communications of U.S. national security officials, as well as the Kamala Harris campaign and President-Elect Donald Trump himself.
The revelation prompted outrage from former Trump administration officials who say Wray did not do enough to stem the threat from China on his watch, only to discuss it publicly a week from stepping down.
Joshua Steinman, former National Security Council senior director for cyber security during the Trump administration, posted on X:
This enrages me.
I left them with the tools they needed to confront this.
And it appears those tools went unused for four years.
Total mismanagement. https://t.co/cHawQMHWoG
— joshua steinman (🇺🇸,🇺🇸) (@JoshuaSteinman) January 12, 2025