China accuses US of cyberattacks on national time centre in Xi'an

China has claimed that the US National Security Agency conducted years-long cyberattacks on its National Time Service Centre in Xi'an, targeting internal networks and devices

China’s top counter-espionage agency has accused the United States of conducting a prolonged cyberattack campaign against its National Time Service Centre, a key facility responsible for maintaining the country’s standard time, reported South China Morning Post.

 

In a statement posted on WeChat on Sunday, the Ministry of State Security alleged that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had carried out “long-term, highly covert” attacks using state-level cyberespionage tools. The ministry said the cyber intrusions began in March 2022 and involved the theft of sensitive data from staff mobile phones and computer networks.

 

The US is yet to officially comment on these charges.

 

What did Chinese ministry say?

 

According to the ministry, the US NSA exploited vulnerabilities in the messaging service of a foreign smartphone brand to access the devices of time centre staff. It said the US agency had also used stolen login credentials from April 2023 to infiltrate the centre’s computer systems and study its internal network.

 

Investigations traced the attacks through virtual servers located across the United States, Europe and Asia, which were used as “springboards” to disguise their origin, the report said. The ministry claimed that China’s cybersecurity authorities had gathered evidence of the attacks and worked with the time centre to cut off attack chains and upgrade its defences.

 

What impact did it have?

 

The National Time Service Centre, based in Xi’an under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, plays a central role in generating and distributing China’s standard time. Its high-precision services support sectors including communications, finance, power, transport, mapping and defence.

 

Wei Dong, a senior official at the centre, told state broadcaster CCTV that timing accuracy was critical to national infrastructure. “If timing was a millisecond off, it could cause a chain reaction of failures at power substations,” he said, warning that even a microsecond deviation could trigger “fluctuations worth hundreds of billions of dollars” on global stock markets.

 

Wei added that a nanosecond-level error could disrupt the BeiDou satellite navigation system, while a picosecond discrepancy could result in a lunar spacecraft’s position being miscalculated by several kilometres.

 

US-China trade war

 

The allegations come amid renewed tensions between Washington and Beijing over trade and technology, including US tariff threats and China’s restrictions on rare earth exports. Both countries have increasingly traded accusations of cyber espionage in recent years, each branding the other its primary digital threat.

 

Earlier this month, China’s Ministry of Commerce released new rare earth export control documents in a format readable only by WPS Office, its domestically developed alternative to Microsoft Word. The move prevents access through American software and reflects Beijing’s growing efforts to reduce reliance on US technology.

 

Chinese cyberattacks on US firms

 

In September, cybersecurity firm Mandiant said a group of suspected Chinese hackers had breached US software companies and law firms in an advanced espionage campaign aimed at gathering intelligence to aid Beijing in its trade war with Washington.

 

According to a CNN report, the hackers allegedly stole proprietary software from American tech firms and used it to uncover new vulnerabilities for deeper network infiltration. The FBI has launched an investigation, while US officials continue to assess the scale of the breaches, the report added.