Silicon Secrets and Chinese Spies: How Google Got Played Twice in Three Weeks cover art

Silicon Secrets and Chinese Spies: How Google Got Played Twice in Three Weeks

Silicon Secrets and Chinese Spies: How Google Got Played Twice in Three Weeks

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 This is your Silicon Siege: China's Tech Offensive podcast.

Hey listeners, I'm Ting, your go-to gal for all things China cyber chaos and hacking hijinks. Buckle up, because the past two weeks have been a non-stop Silicon Siege—China's tech offensive hitting US shores like a bad VPN glitch that won't quit.

Flash back to January 29th: Ding Linwei, that sneaky ex-Google engineer from China, got nailed in San Francisco federal court for swiping thousands of pages on Google's supercomputing secrets. We're talking blueprints for AI-training hardware that could edge out Amazon and Microsoft clouds, all funneled to two shadowy Chinese startups. DOJ prosecutors called it classic economic espionage—seven counts each of theft and spying, with 15-year max sentences looming. Google cooperated fully, but oof, that's your Pixel Tensor processor tech waltzing to Beijing.

Then, just yesterday, February 20th, bam—another Google gut-punch. Sisters Samaneh Ghandali and Soroor Ghandali, plus hubby Mohammadjavad Khosravi from Qualcomm, indicted in San Jose for pilfering chip security and cryptography secrets. They allegedly exfiltrated hundreds of files via sneaky chat channels, snapped screen pics to dodge logs, even shipped some to Iran. FBI's Sanjay Virmani slammed it as a "calculated betrayal," with Google beefing up safeguards post-bust. Insider threats? Skyrocketing amid US-China chip wars.

Supply chain sabotage? Enter CVE-2026-22769 in Dell's RecoverPoint for VMs—hardcoded creds letting hackers waltz in. CISA slapped a three-day federal patch order by February 21st, after Google's Mandiant spotted China-linked UNC6201 exploiting it since mid-2024. These creeps deployed Brickstorm backdoors, Grimbolt implants, and ghost NICs for stealthy lateral moves in espionage ops. Dell confirmed limited active abuse; Mandiant ties it to Silk Typhoon, that PLA crew loving zero-days for government breaches.

Don't sleep on Volt Typhoon either—CYFIRMA's February 20th report flags this elite Chinese squad still burrowed in US utilities and tech infra since 2021, eyeing defense and telecoms for long-haul spying. Meanwhile, Reuters dropped on February 12th that Trump's Commerce Department shelved bans on China Telecom, China Unicom, and Chinese EVs, letting Beijing gear flood data centers. Matt Pottinger, ex-deputy NSA, warns it'll spawn "remotely controlled islands of Chinese digital sovereignty." David Feith calls it embedding vulnerabilities in our AI backbone. Brandon Weichert from 19FortyFive pins it on China's rare-earth stranglehold—US playing supplicant.

Strategic fallout? Industrial espionage is bleeding AI, semis, and cloud dominance dry, compromising supply chains for backdoors galore. Experts like Mandiant predict more zero-day blitzes; if unchecked, Beijing vetoes US tech policy via leverage. Future risks? Rampant—patch fast, audit insiders, or watch your IP ghost to Shenzhen.

Thanks for tuning in, listeners—hit subscribe for more cyber spice. This has been a Quiet Please production, for more check out quietplease.ai.

For more http://www.quietplease.ai


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