The Silent Storm: Why Our Cybersecurity Strategy Must Evolve

Cyber activities conducted by or at the direction of the People's Republic of China have long been the topic of public comment by federal officials. Bemoaning the theft of intellectual property and sensitive data is commonplace in Washington among those concerned or responsible for protecting critical infrastructures and sensitive data. So, what is the renewed urgency about? What has changed since the early 2010s to introduce a qualitatively different dimension to cyber defense and international stability discussions? Improvements in analytics and detection techniques have allowed for the drawing of refined and alarming conclusions from years of research.

In this Critical Insights publication, Dr. David Mussington details how Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon are not just “hacking” – they are pre‑positioning inside civilian lifelines to enable coercion of democratic societies in a crisis, which demands treating their activity as battlespace preparation across utilities, telecom, lawful intercept, and cloud control channels rather than garden‑variety espionage.