China Accuses US of NSA Cyberattack on National Time Center, Stealing Secrets

BEIJING – China has publicly accused the United States National Security Agency (NSA) of systematically stealing secrets and infiltrating the country’s National Time Service Center over an extended period. The accusation, made by China’s State Security Ministry on Sunday, warns that the cyber breaches risked disrupting critical infrastructure, including communication networks, financial systems, the power supply, and even the international standard time. The National Time Service Center, a key research institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is responsible for generating, maintaining, and broadcasting China’s standard time.

In a detailed statement posted on its official WeChat account, the ministry claimed its investigation uncovered evidence of espionage stretching back to 2022. The ministry alleged that the U.S. intelligence agency “exploited a vulnerability” in the messaging service of an unnamed foreign smartphone brand to access staff members’ mobile devices and steal data and credentials in 2022.

Furthermore, the investigation found that the U.S. launched attacks on the center’s internal network systems and attempted to attack the high-precision ground-based timing system in both 2023 and 2024. The U.S. embassy in Beijing did not directly address the specific accusations against the NSA. Instead, a spokesperson reiterated the long-standing American position, describing China as the most active and persistent cyber threat to U.S. government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks.

“Cyber actors based in China have compromised major U.S. and global telecommunications providers’ networks to conduct broad significant cyber espionage campaigns,” the embassy spokesperson told Reuters in an email.

These latest accusations escalate the ongoing cyber conflict between the two superpowers, who have consistently portrayed one another as the primary cyber threat. The charges surface amid renewed trade tensions, including China’s expanded rare earths export controls and U.S. threats of increased tariffs on Chinese goods.