CaliToday (20/10/2025): In a move rich with geopolitical irony, China has publicly accused the United States of conducting a prolonged, sophisticated cyberattack against one of its most critical national agencies. The nation, long identified by Western intelligence as a primary source of state-sponsored hacking and intellectual property theft, has now pivoted to positioning itself as a major victim of cyber warfare.
On October 19, China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) issued a detailed public statement, broadcast via its official WeChat account, alleging that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) orchestrated a multi-year campaign targeting the National Time Service Center (NTSC).
The MSS warned that these actions, which it labeled as "state-level cyber weapons," could have triggered catastrophic cascading failures across China's information systems, financial markets, energy grids, and transportation networks.
The Anatomy of a High-Tech Breach
According to the MSS report, the infiltration was not a brute-force assault but a patient, multi-stage operation. Chinese investigators claim the attack began in 2022 when the NSA allegedly exploited a security vulnerability in a foreign messaging application installed on the personal device of an NTSC employee.
This initial breach allowed attackers to steal data and critical login credentials. By 2023, these stolen credentials were reportedly used to "pivot" from the employee's device and successfully infiltrate the NTSC's internal network, allowing for persistent surveillance and data theft.
The NTSC, based in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, is the backbone of China's national infrastructure. As a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, its sole function is to generate and distribute the official national standard time. This high-precision timing service is the "heartbeat" for nearly every key sector in the country, including telecommunications, finance, energy, transportation, mapping, and national defense.
"42 Different Cyber Weapons"
The Chinese ministry alleged the campaign escalated dramatically between August 2023 and June 2024. During this period, the NSA allegedly deployed a "new cyber-warfare platform" that unleashed 42 different types of "specialized weapons" against the NTSC's internal systems. The primary goal, according to the MSS, was to breach the center's high-precision ground timing system.
To mask its origin, the NSA allegedly used virtual servers based in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The attacks were reportedly timed to occur late at night or in the early morning hours, Beijing time, and employed strong encryption algorithms to evade detection.
Li Jianhua, director of a national information analysis lab at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, told the South China Morning Post that the tactics—exploiting undiscovered vulnerabilities to "silently infiltrate, monitor, or destroy critical infrastructure"—were clear hallmarks of a state-level offensive.
The Nanosecond Stakes
The potential consequences of such a breach are staggering. Wei Dong, a senior official at the NTSC, explained the fragility of the systems his agency protects.
"A deviation of just one millisecond in the time standard could cause a chain reaction in power stations, leading to widespread blackouts," Wei stated.
The stakes in the financial sector are even higher. "If there is a one-microsecond deviation, global financial markets could see fluctuations of hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars," he added.
Perhaps most critically, a nanosecond-level error could cause China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system—the state's alternative to GPS—to deviate from its orbit, crippling national communications and military positioning.
A Tit-for-Tat in a New Cold War
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has not yet responded to the allegations. This accusation is the latest in a long-running, tit-for-tat cycle of cyber-espionage claims between the world's two largest economies. For years, the U.S. has accused China of massive data theft, while Beijing has consistently denied the charges, claiming it is also a victim.
This cyber-skirmish is not happening in a vacuum. It unfolds against a backdrop of escalating bilateral trade tensions, with China recently expanding its export controls on rare-earth minerals and the U.S. threatening new, sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods.
