About this episode
This is your Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch podcast.Hey listeners, Ting here on Cyber Sentinel: Beijing Watch, diving straight into the hottest Chinese cyber chaos from the past week ending February 23, 2026. Picture this: I'm sipping baijiu in my digital war room, screens flickering with red alerts, as Beijing's hackers pull off moves that'd make Sun Tzu nod approvingly.First up, Red Packet Security dropped a bombshell today—China's got deep hooks in US energy networks, electric grids, oil, and gas giants, primed to flip the switch and black out the nation in a heartbeat. These aren't fly-by-night intrusions; they're persistent embeds, tactical time bombs for strategic sabotage. Energy's the bullseye because it cripples everything from hospitals to hypersonics.Over at TechCrunch, Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai reports Chinese operatives exploited a sneaky backdoor in Ivanti's Pulse Secure VPN—remember that 2021 Pulse breach? It hit 119 orgs, including US and European military contractors. Mandiant clocked it, but private equity cuts at Clearlake Capital gutted Ivanti's security know-how. Fast-forward: CISA yanked federal Ivanti gear in 2024 over zero-days, and now it's a gift-wrapped entry for lateral prowls.Check Point Research nails UNC6201, a suspected Chinese crew, zero-daying Dell RecoverPoint for VMs via CVE-2026-22769 since mid-2024—file uploads straight to hell for VM domination. And BeyondTrust's CVE-2026-1731? Cyberpress and Security Affairs say attackers are slamming it to plant VShell RATs, pivoting networks like it's a Beijing street market.Unit 42's 2026 report is my nightmare fuel: Chinese nation-states, alongside North Korea and Iran, are going stealthy, hitting virtualization layers for eternal persistence. AI turbocharges it—breaches in 72 minutes, down from 285! Phishing and creds nab 90% of entries, exploiting 99% over-privileged cloud IDs. They're even faking job interviews via bogus portals to malware-up new hires. SaaS jumps to 23% risk via API chains.Internationally? Reuters spills Beijing's January ban on Palo Alto, CrowdStrike, Check Point—calling their intel a spy faucet. Georgia Tech warns this fractures global threat sharing; only 17% vendors share full malware, delays kill us. US mirrors with Kaspersky bans, but network ops hold the key—demand provenance: who saw it, how analyzed, validated?Tactical hit: Industries screaming—energy, defense contractors, VMs, remote access. Attribution? IOCs, TTPs scream UNC6201, classic PLA vibes. Strategic? Forces US Air Force reset per Hudson Institute—dispersed Edge Forces dodging PLARF missiles, but cyber's the silent killer enabling it. Energy Intel flags Chinese solar inverters with comms backdoors, remotely killed in 2024 disputes.Recommendations, listeners: Treat identity as your moat—zero-trust creds, Active Exposure Management. Patch Ivanti, BeyondTrust, Dell yesterday. Govern mac
