Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said at the Aspen Institute forum last Monday that Chinese cyber operations against the United States have changed their focus: now they are not so much pursuing cyber espionage, but are aimed at undermining infrastructure and destabilizing American society.

“Chinese actors have been in the spotlight for many years. The key here is that mere espionage is no longer the focus of Chinese actors,” Easterly said.

By espionage, Easterly refers to the theft of intellectual property and “the largest transfer of intellectual wealth in history.”

“What we’re starting to see, and that’s been captured in the intelligence community’s annual threat assessment, is attacks that are less about espionage and more about destruction and destabilization,” she added.

In intelligence community threat assessment says that in the event of a serious conflict with the US, Beijing would “almost certainly” consider aggressive cyber operations against critical US infrastructure and military installations, including pipelines and railroads, to hamper troop movements and cause public panic.

“I think this is a real threat that we need to be prepared for,” Easterly said.

Given the “serious nature of the threat posed by Chinese state actors,” Easterly believes that it will be very difficult for the US to prevent infrastructure disruptions and is therefore advocating for increased resilience, faith in which has recently been undermined. For example, Easterly cited the response to the Colonial pipeline incident and China’s high-altitude balloon as signs of declining social resilience.

“I think we need to be prepared to respond, recover, learn from disruptions and move forward in a way that allows our critical services, networks and businesses to continue to operate, even at the risk of Chinese state actors who want to jeopardize this critical infrastructure,” Easterly explained.

In addition to cybersecurity, the director of CISA sees hope in working with China to prevent the apocalypse associated with the development of artificial intelligence.

“If we can negotiate with our adversaries about nuclear weapons, I think we should probably think about negotiating with our adversaries about AI, which I think will be the most powerful weapon of this century,” Easterly said.

She also specifically noted that nuclear weapons were created under the auspices of the national security of different countries, while AI is created by private companies whose responsibility is to maximize profits for their shareholders.