China alleges US cyberattacks on national time centre, warns of risks to critical systems
China’s Ministry of State Security has accused the United States of mounting a multi-year cyber campaign against the National Time Service Centre, the body that generates and distributes the country’s official time. The ministry said the activity, attributed to the US National Security Agency, threatened services that depend on precise timing, including communications, finance, power, transport, mapping and defence. The US embassy in China did not immediately comment.
In a statement posted Sunday, 19 October 2025, Beijing time, the ministry described the operations as long term and highly covert, using state grade espionage tools. Officials said the activity began in March 2022 with the compromise of foreign brand mobile phones used by staff, followed in April 2023 by intrusions into the centre’s computer systems using stolen passwords.
Chinese authorities said the campaign intensified from August 2023 to June 2024. Investigators alleged the NSA deployed a new cyberwarfare platform with 42 specialised tools to attack internal networks and probed a high precision ground based timing system, which they said could enable later disruption. The ministry added that most activity occurred late at night or in the early morning, Beijing time, and routed through virtual servers in the United States, Europe and Asia to obscure origin, with strong encryption used throughout.
State media cited Chinese cybersecurity experts who characterised the activity as an advanced persistent threat, noting the use of zero day vulnerabilities and multiple international “springboard” servers to evade detection around critical networks. The National Time Service Centre said it had worked with state security agencies to cut attack chains and upgrade defences.
Officials stressed the societal stakes of precision timing. Even millisecond level errors can cascade through power substations, they said, potentially causing blackouts. Microsecond deviations could roil international markets. A nanosecond offset can degrade the BeiDou navigation system by about 30 centimetres, with knock on effects for mobile and internet services. At the picosecond scale, they warned, spaceflight navigation could miss by several kilometres.
China’s security services said they had collected evidence of the intrusions and guided remediation at the time centre. The ministry framed the incident as part of a broader risk to national infrastructure, and urged continued hardening of timing systems that underpin both civilian life and strategic capabilities.
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