Canada, allies warn of China-sponsored cyber threat targeting critical infrastructure.

Canada and its Five Eyes allies issued a rare joint advisory Wednesday about a Chinese state-sponsored cyber threat that is targeting critical U.S. infrastructure.

The Communications Security Establishment (CSE)’s Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and its partners in the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand say the cyber actor, known as Volt Typhoon, has avoided detection by blending in with normal Windows operations.

The technique, known as “living off the land,” allows the actor to move through systems by taking advantage of built-in network administration tools, making its actions look like normal activity.

The CSE says Volt Typhoon has only been detected in the U.S. so far, and that no Canadian victims have been reported as of Wednesday.

“However, western economies are deeply interconnected,” the agency warned. “Much of our infrastructure is closely integrated and an attack on one can impact the other.”

More to come…