The widespread blackouts that recently brought parts of Spain and Portugal to a standstill triggered global speculation: was it an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack?

Though authorities later ruled out an EMP, the incident reignited urgent questions about America’s vulnerability to similar large-scale disruptions and whether the U.S. is prepared for a modern-day "black sky" event.

According to cybersecurity expert and former Army Cyber Institute board member Bryson Bort, the United States remains dangerously exposed to a range of threats: not just EMPs, but increasingly sophisticated cyber and artificial intelligence (AI) attacks.

"There are a lot of other problems that are higher probability," Bort told Fox News Digital. "The EMP thing is a little bit of a distraction – but that doesn’t mean it’s not a threat."

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An EMP is a sudden burst of electromagnetic energy capable of disabling electronic devices across vast areas. It can be natural – from a solar flare – or man-made, triggered by a high-altitude nuclear detonation.

Unlike cyberattacks that target software, an EMP disables physical systems: from car engines and cellphone towers to hospital generators and water pumps. A major attack could throw society back to the pre-electric age, with devastating consequences.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey once called EMPs "one of the greatest national vulnerabilities," and some estimates suggest an EMP could result in the deaths of up to 90% of Americans within a year due to the collapse of infrastructure.

"The very first thing you’ve got to lose is your water supply," said Dr. William Forstchen, a longtime EMP researcher. "Within days, nursing homes, hospitals, law enforcement – they’re all in deep trouble."

While the Trump administration issued an executive order directing federal agencies to prepare for such an event, Bort said implementation has been inconsistent and fragmented.

"We are not prepared for this at all," he warned.

Forstchen expressed optimism that the administration’s "Golden Dome" project, a proposed ground-and space-based defense system, could intercept EMP threats – but the project remains years from completion. 

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While EMP attacks remain the stuff of both national security nightmares and Hollywood scripts, experts say cyberattacks are far more probable and still highly destructive. 

"We know that the Chinese have been in the American civilian critical infrastructure since 2010," Bort said. "They haven’t done anything yet, but they are absolutely in there and setting up to do something at some point."

This week, Reuters reported that U.S. officials found communication modules embedded in Chinese-made power inverters – devices used to connect solar panels and wind turbines to the grid.

Bort pointed to "Jack Voltaic," a multi-year cyber warfare simulation by the Army Cyber Institute, designed to test military-civilian coordination in response to attacks on critical infrastructure.

"What we found is there’s a great interdependence," he said. "You can’t even have an electric grid if you don’t have water – because you can’t cool it."

Bort said cyberattacks are often the product of long-term reconnaissance, with hackers quietly positioning themselves inside systems for months or years.

"A cyberattack is not something where Putin says, ‘Hey, hit Detroit tomorrow,’" he explained. "It’s already set in place. When the political situation calls for it, that’s when the trigger gets pulled."

Another, less understood, threat to America’s infrastructure is the rise of AI. In particular, the race toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), or AI systems with human-level cognitive abilities.

Tyler Saltzman, a military technologist working on AI systems capable of operating in disconnected environments like an EMP aftermath, warned that AI – if used maliciously – could bring the grid down entirely. "Our infrastructure is very fragile," Saltzman said. "All you need to do is take down our power grid, and we’re in complete chaos."

Saltzman expressed deep concern about efforts to create AGI – systems he says could eventually surpass human control.

"Once AGI comes online, it could easily take down our power grid, infiltrate our financial systems, destroy our economy," he said. "If it sees how violent humans are to each other, why would it serve us?"

In 2023, a Chinese surveillance balloon drifted over U.S. territory for days before it was shot down by the military. While believed to be for spying, defense officials note that a high-altitude balloon could be used for electronic warfare – including an EMP.

The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attacks has long warned about balloon-based delivery. Others argue a missile would be more effective, since it would be harder to intercept.

Whether the next major threat comes from above or from a keyboard, experts agree: the U.S. is not ready.

"We’re still thinking about wars with tanks," Bort said. "Meanwhile, the real fight is already happening inside our infrastructure."

Chinese officials acknowledged behind closed doors at a December meeting that their government was responsible for a series of cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure, according to a Wall Street Journal report based on information from people familiar with the matter.

The news comes as the two countries continue to spar over tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump and reciprocated and upped by President Xi Jinping.

In an exclusive, the Wall Street Journal reported that those who spoke on condition of anonymity claimed Chinese officials connected the cyberattacks on U.S. ports, airports, utilities and other important targets to America’s support for Taiwan.

The report noted that Biden administration officials learned of the discovery first hand during a summit in Geneva, as their Chinese counterparts blamed the campaign, referred to as Volt Typhoon, on a criminal organization.

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Chinese officials also accused the U.S. of pointing blame at China based on their imagination.

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital the State Department has made clear to Beijing that the U.S. will continue to take actions in response to Chinese malicious cyber activity targeting the U.S.

"Chinese cyber threats are some of the gravest and most persistent threats to U.S. national security," the spokesperson said. "The United States will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to safeguard U.S. critical infrastructure from irresponsible and reckless cyberattacks from Beijing. President Trump is committed to protecting the American people and U.S. critical infrastructure from these threats."

The Chinese Embassy told FOX Business that China "firmly opposes" the smear attacks against it without any factual basis.

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"Cyberspace is characterized by strong virtuality, difficulty in tracing origins, and diverse actors, making the tracing of cyberattacks a complex technical issue," Embassy spokesperson Mr. Liu Pengyu said. "We hope that relevant parties will adopt a professional and responsible attitude when characterizing cyber incidents, basing their conclusions on sufficient evidence rather than unfounded speculation and accusations.

"The US needs to stop using cybersecurity to smear and slander China, and stop spreading all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats," he added.

The Biden administration warned state leaders in March 2024 that cyberattacks by hackers linked to Iran and China could take down water systems across the U.S. if cybersecurity measures were not taken out of precaution.

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Then Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael S. Regan and Jake Sullivan, the assistant to Biden for national security affairs, said in an email to state governors that cyberattacks were targeting water and wastewater systems throughout the U.S.

In the letter, the two Biden administration officials said the attacks could disrupt clean and safe drinking water and impose significant costs on affected communities.

While one attack was linked to Iran, the other threat came from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored hacker group, Volt Typhoon, which compromised information technology of critical infrastructure systems, including drinking water facilities in the U.S. and its territories.

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As U.S. officials issued warnings about Volt Typhoon’s effort, they also accused the PRC of attempting to get into U.S. computer networks in an effort to unleash cyberattacks during any unforeseen conflicts in the future.

The FBI said in December that hackers in Beijing infiltrated networks of "multiple" telecommunication companies, gaining access to customer call records and private communications of "a limited number of individuals." But the targets, the FBI noted in December, were Americans involved in government and politics.

A federal investigation uncovered a massive cyber-espionage campaign by the Chinese government, targeting U.S. telecommunications networks to steal Americans' information. A top White House official confirmed in December that at least eight U.S. telecom companies had been affected by the hacking spree. 

The campaign was believed to have started a year or two ago, The Associated Press reported.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates and supervises national banks, on Tuesday said it notified Congress of a February hack that it called a "major information security incident."

The breach was first disclosed in February when it learned of "unusual interactions between a system administrative account in its office automation environment and OCC user mailboxes," an OCC news release states. 

According to Bloomberg, the hackers had access to more than 150,000 emails after breaching the system in June 2023.

"The confidentiality and integrity of the OCC’s information security systems are paramount to fulfilling its mission," said Acting Comptroller of the Currency Rodney Hood.

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The OCC first learned of the incident on Feb. 11. Compromised administrative accounts were shut off the next day.

"The OCC discovered that the unauthorized access to a number of its executives’ and employees’ emails included highly sensitive information relating to the financial condition of federally regulated financial institutions used in its examinations and supervisory oversight processes," the agency said.

The OCC said it has reached out to third-party cybersecurity experts to conduct a review of IT security protocols to prevent future attacks. 

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"I have taken immediate steps to determine the full extent of the breach and to remedy the long-held organizational and structural deficiencies that contributed to this incident," Hood said. "There will be full accountability for the vulnerabilities identified and any missed internal findings that led to the unauthorized access."

Throughout its review, the OCC has coordinated with the Treasury Department to share information about its findings.

America’s defenses will not be able to keep up with its peer adversaries if the Pentagon continues to take years to innovate its weapons systems, experts agreed at a security summit last week. 

The Pentagon’s modernization was given a "D" by the National Security Innovation Base Summit this week, a near-failing letter grade that national security leaders in Congress agreed was a fair assessment.

"Progress lives in the private sector, and we're not seeing enough progress in the public sector," said Govini CEO Tara Murphy Dougherty. "The department needs a massive kick in the pants in this area, and should be held accountable for catching up in progress to match what is happening among the investor community and among the technology sector."

"I think the score is a deserved score, unfortunately," House Armed Services Committee Vice Chair Rob Wittman said. 

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"The Pentagon is the Ford Motor Company of the 1950s. I mean, they the way they operate, slow, stoic," Wittman explained. "‘Let's spend years to write a requirement, then let’s spend years to go to a program or record, let’s spend years to acquire.’ By the time we acquire something, guess what? The threat’s way ahead of us." 

"We want them to reflect the Apple 2025 model."

Nowhere is this clearer to defense leaders than in the nation’s shipbuilding capabilities. The Navy currently has 295 deployable ships, though its shipbuilding plan calls for that number to be increased to 390 by 2054. The Maritime Security Program, which maintains privately owned, military-useful ships to deploy in wartime, is down to 60 in its fleet. 

"It's precipitously low. We could not get to where we need to be in the Pacific right now if we needed to," Wittman told Fox News Digital. 

The issue seemingly keeps President Donald Trump awake at night. 

John Phelan, Trump’s nominee for Navy secretary, quipped during his confirmation hearing that the president texts him late at night, "sometimes after 1 a.m." about "rusty ships or ships in a yard, asking me, what am I doing about it?" 

Phelan added that he has told the president, "I'm not confirmed yet and have not been able to do anything about it, but I will be very focused on it."

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"We used to make so many ships," Trump lamented during a speech to a joint Congress on Tuesday. "We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact." 

He announced he had establish a White House Office of Shipbuilding. 

With the Pentagon, "it’s process, process, process, not outcomes," said Wittman, who announced he would be co-chairing a defense modernization caucus in Congress.

"We're operating off of an innovation cycle right now that, you know, used to be a decade, and it used to be five years. Then it used to be three years, and now it's a year or less innovation cycle," said Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. "In Ukraine, they're actually operating off of week-long innovation cycles." 

Crow said it is up to Congress to give the Pentagon the "kick in the pants" it needs to move faster. 

"There are simply no demand signals being sent. So that requires a very real conversation about political will, which is actually bipartisan right now on this issue." 

The Pentagon began work on the F-35 fighter jet 25 years ago, and it is "just now getting into full scale production," noted Wittman. 

"The capability of that aircraft, the modernization that it needs to keep up with the Chinese threat, it's just not where it has to be."

Even the newest F-35s need to be taken back to the assembly line to be fitted with 360-degree motion sensors known as the digital aperture system and the other latest technology in radars, Wittman said. 

"We're still not going to deliver the current jets coming off the line with technical refresh three hardware and have that software enabled until probably early next year." 

Under a new DOGE memo, the Pentagon has kicked off a review of its contracting procedures. "Each Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, shall conduct a comprehensive review of each agency’s contracting policies, procedures, and personnel," a memo circulated this week read. 

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., told Fox News Digital she worries most about the military being prepared to defend against a cyberattack. 

"China specifically is better at cybersecurity than we are," she said. "It only takes one or two incursions that we don't see coming or that we aren't responsive to, to make an enormous difference here." 

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., suggested that the U.S. may need to start thinking about offensive cyber missions. 

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"When it comes to cyber, we’ve got to change the rules of engagement," he said. "China is eating our boxed lunch in the energy area, in our cellular phone infrastructure, they’re trying to get into Wall Street, they’re trying to get into agriculture." 

"We’re really good on cyberintelligence but we have [rules of engagement] that do not let us do nearly what China or Russia does," he continued. "I don’t think it’s like taking punches to the face, saying ‘can I have another.’"

"We’ve got to be able to allow cyber command to fight fire with fire. I wouldn’t even advertise it that much. Just carry a big stick and, get them back." 

FIRST ON FOX: A bipartisan duo is looking to tag team cyber risks for American food supplies, debuting new legislation to increase analysis and threat detection in critical farm and food infrastructure. 

Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., teamed up to introduce the Farm and Food Cybersecurity Act, designed to boost protection across agriculture and food sectors. 

"America’s adversaries are seeking to gain any advantage they can against us—including targeting critical industries like agriculture," Cotton told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

"Congress must work with the Department of Agriculture to identify and defeat these cybersecurity vulnerabilities," he said. "This legislation will ensure we are prepared to protect the supply chains our farmers and all Americans rely on."

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"Food security is national security, and the Farm and Food Cybersecurity Act is a vital step toward safeguarding Michigan’s agriculture and food sectors," said Slotkin in her own statement. 

"Cyber-attacks threaten our food supply constantly, and we must ensure both government and private industries are prepared," she added. "This bipartisan bill will require the Department of Agriculture to work closely with our national security agencies to ensure that our adversaries, like China, can’t threaten our ability to feed ourselves by ourselves."

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Specifically, the measure would require the secretaries of agriculture, homeland security and health and human services to coordinate with each other and with the director of national intelligence to go through annual crisis simulations to prepare for any cyber emergencies relating to food infrastructure. 

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The secretary of agriculture would also be directed to conduct risk assessments every two years to determine any vulnerabilities in the food and farm sectors, reporting the findings to Congress. 

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Sens. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Ted Budd, R-N.C., are cosponsors of the bill. A companion bill is being introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Brad Finstad, R-Minn.

The bill has already gotten the backing of several food industry groups, such as the North American Millers Association, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, USA Rice and the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., penned a letter to newly sworn-in Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, warning that the United Kingdom's reported new order demanding backdoor Apple data jeopardizes Americans.

The letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, referenced recent press reports that the U.K.’s home secretary "served Apple with a secret order last month, directing the company to weaken the security of its iCloud backup service to facilitate government spying." The directive reportedly requires the company to weaken the encryption of its iCloud backup service, giving the U.K. government the "blanket capability" to access customers’ encrypted files. 

Reports further state that the order was issued under the U.K.’s Investigatory Powers Act 2016, commonly known as the "Snoopers’ Charter," which does not require a judge’s approval. 

"Apple is reportedly gagged from acknowledging that it received such an order, and the company faces criminal penalties that prevent it from even confirming to the U.S. Congress the accuracy of these press reports," Wyden and Biggs note. 

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The United Kingdom has been increasingly cracking down on British citizens for opposition commentary, especially online posts and memes opposing mass migration. As riots broke out in the U.K. last August after a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event left three girls dead and others wounded, London's Metropolitan Police chief warned that officials could also extradite and jail U.S. citizens for online posts about the unrest. 

The letter, however, described the threat of China, Russia and other adversaries spying on Americans.

Wyden, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Biggs, who chairs a House Judiciary subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, asked Gabbard to "act decisively to protect the security of Americans’ communications from dangerous, shortsighted efforts by the United Kingdom (U.K.) that will undermine Americans’ privacy rights and expose them to espionage by China, Russia and other adversaries." 

The Washington Post was among the outlets to report about the U.K. order. 

"These reported actions seriously threaten the privacy and security of both the American people and the U.S. government," Wyden and Biggs wrote. "Apple does not make different versions of its encryption software for each market; Apple customers in the U.K. use the same software as Americans. If Apple is forced to build a backdoor in its products, that backdoor will end up in Americans’ phones, tablets, and computers, undermining the security of Americans’ data, as well as of the countless federal, state and local government agencies that entrust sensitive data to Apple products." 

The letter also references a Chinese hacking operation known as "Salt Typhoon." Last year, the Biden White House admitted the Chinese hacked at least nine U.S. telecommunications companies. 

"The Salt Typhoon hack of U.S. telephone carriers’ wiretapping systems last year – in which President Trump and Vice President Vance’s calls were tapped by China – provides a perfect example of the dangers of surveillance backdoors," the letter says. "They will inevitably be compromised by sophisticated foreign adversaries and exploited in ways harmful to U.S. national security. As the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI confirmed last November, People’s Republic of China (PRC)-affiliated actors were involved in ‘copying of certain information that was subject to U.S. law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders.’" 

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"While the U.K has been a trusted ally, the U.S. government must not permit what is effectively a foreign cyberattack waged through political means. If the U.K. does not immediately reverse this dangerous effort, we urge you to reevaluate U.S.-U.K. cybersecurity arrangements and programs as well as U.S. intelligence sharing with the U.K.," the letter says.

Citing a December 2023 report by the U.K. Parliament’s intelligence oversight committee, the letter states that the U.K. benefits greatly from a "mutual presumption towards unrestricted sharing of [Signals Intelligence]" between the U.S. and U.K. and that "[t]he weight of advantage in the partnership with the [National Security Agency] is overwhelmingly in [the U.K.’s] favour." 

"The bilateral U.S.-U.K. relationship must be built on trust. If the U.K. is secretly undermining one of the foundations of U.S. cybersecurity, that trust has been profoundly breached," Wyden and Biggs wrote. 

At her confirmation hearing, Gabbard stated that "backdoors lead down a dangerous path that can undermine Americans' Fourth Amendment rights and civil liberties." In written responses to senators' questions, she also said, "mandating mechanisms to bypass encryption or privacy technologies undermines user security, privacy, and trust and poses significant risks of exploitation by malicious actors."

"We urge you to put those words into action by giving the U.K. an ultimatum: back down from this dangerous attack on U.S. cybersecurity, or face serious consequences," Wyden and Biggs wrote.

The letter asks Gabbard specifically whether the Trump administration was made aware of the reported order, either by the U.K. or Apple, prior to the press reports and, if so, when and by whom. They also ask what the Trump administration's understanding is of U.K. law "and the bilateral CLOUD Act agreement with regard to an exception to gag orders for notice to the U.S. government." Wyden and Biggs asked what the Trump administration's understanding is "of its obligation to inform Congress and the American public about foreign government demands for U.S. companies to weaken the security of their products, pursuant to the CLOUD Act?" The letter asked that unclassified answers be provided by March 3. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Apple and the White House regarding the letter, but neither immediately responded.

The White House’s outgoing cyber czar, Harry Coker, called for three key things to meet the growing threat of digital attacks: more funding, deregulation and opening up cyber jobs to those without college degrees.

As adversaries like Iran, China and Russia lob near-constant attacks on the U.S. digital infrastructure, "we have to prioritize cybersecurity within federal budgets" President Joe Biden’s national cyber director said at an event with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.

"I would love for the incoming administration, or any administration, to recognize the priority of cybersecurity," Coker said. 

He added that he understands the U.S. is in a "tough budget situation."

"I get that, and I support making progress towards reducing the deficit, but we have to prioritize cybersecurity within our current budgets," he said.

At the same time, the Biden appointee railed against "duplicative federal regulation" and said he’d heard from those working to protect the nation’s online infrastructure that they spend "a staggering 30 to 50%" of their time working to comply with regulation, rather than ensuring protection from hacks.

"Armed with the industry's call to streamline, we worked with Congress to write bipartisan legislation that would bring all stakeholders, including independent regulators, to the table to advance the regulatory harmonization," he went on.

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"Many of us were disappointed that this has not become law yet, but we have laid the groundwork for the next administration in Congress to do the right thing for our partners in the private sector."

His urging comes as the U.S. is grappling with the fallout of one of China’s biggest attacks on American infrastructure in history, dubbed Salt Typhoon. 

A Chinese intelligence group infiltrated nine U.S. telecommunications giants and gained access to the private text messages and phone calls of Americans, including senior government officials and prominent political figures. 

The Salt Typhoon hackers also gained access to an exhaustive list of phone numbers the Justice Department had wiretapped to monitor people suspected of espionage, granting them insight into which Chinese spies the U.S. had caught onto and which they had missed.

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China was also behind a "major" hack of the Treasury Department in December, gaining access to unclassified documents and the workstations of government employees. 

And earlier this year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s communications were intercepted by Chinese intelligence, just as she was making determinations about new export controls on semiconductors and other key technologies. The same hacking group also targeted officials at the State Department and members of Congress.

Amid this onslaught of attacks, Coker said the cyber industry is suffering a recruitment issue. 

"Today there are nearly 500,000 open cyber jobs in this great nation," he said. 

"The federal government is leading by example… removing federal employee and contractor hiring from a focus on college degrees to a focus on what we're really after: skills.

"When we do away with the four-year college degree requirement, we expand our talent pool," Coker went on. "Many Americans don't have the time or the means to go to college for four years, but they can do it for two years or less."

China was behind a "major" hack of the Treasury Department, the Biden administration said Monday, gaining access to unclassified documents and the workstations of government employees. 

After a year fraught with hacking across all government agencies, China experts say it’s time to get serious about thwarting adversarial espionage. 

"The latest intrusion should not come as a surprise. For too long, the CCP has paid no real price for its increasingly aggressive intrusions into our homeland and networks," Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., chairman of the House China Select Committee, told Fox News Digital. 

"It is time for Congress and the incoming Trump administration to impose escalating costs to deter the CCP." 

It’s not yet clear what exactly the hackers were seeking. The Treasury houses sensitive data about global financial systems, as well as estimates about China’s ailing economy. It also carries out sanctions on Chinese companies, as well as those aiding Russia in the war on Ukraine.

"Even though the Treasury says the Chinese only got unclassified documents, we’ve got to remember that a hack of the Treasury sends shudders not just across the U.S., but across the world. Countries rely on the dollar, can you rely on the stability of the American financial markets?" said China expert Gordon Chang. 

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Treasury was notified by a service provider of the breach on Dec. 8, and all systems affected were taken offline. China called the accusation that it was behind the act "baseless" and said it "consistently opposes all forms of hacking."

Despite China’s denial, the Treasury insisted a Chinese state-sponsored actor was behind the attack. Chang suggested Xi may have intended to get caught to send a message to the world. 

"We can't actually exclude the possibility that the Chinese wanted to be caught because they wanted to actually create uncertainty around the world. They wanted to show the world that the United States is not safe — their networks are not good, the Chinese control them at will."

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Just weeks ago, President-elect Donald Trump seemed to be making an attempt to smooth over relations with China with an invitation to President Xi Jinping for his inauguration. But the recent hacking attempt suggests such efforts might be futile, according to Chang. 

"American presidents had tried preemptive concessions to China for decades. They've not resulted in benefits to us. And the reason is because the Chinese don't reciprocate them," he said.

Earlier this year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s communications were intercepted by Chinese intelligence, just as she was making determinations about new export controls on semiconductors and other key technology. The same hacking group also targeted officials at the State Department and members of Congress.

And the Treasury hack comes just as the Biden administration is grappling with one of China’s biggest attacks on American infrastructure in history, dubbed Salt Typhoon. 

A Chinese intelligence group infiltrated nine U.S. telecommunications giants and gained access to the private text messages and phone calls of Americans, including senior government officials and prominent political figures. 

The Salt Typhoon hackers also gained access to an exhaustive list of phone numbers the Justice Department had wiretapped to monitor people suspected of espionage, granting them insight into which Chinese spies the U.S. had caught onto and which they had missed.

The onslaught of cyberattacks has prompted frustration — and raised questions — about cybersecurity and why America's adversaries are able to penetrate U.S. government systems with regularity.

"The American people should be angry at the Chinese for hacking us, but they should be outraged at our political leaders because our political leaders know what's going on. They have the means to protect us, and they have decided not to do so," said Chang. 

Last week, incoming national security adviser Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., suggested the U.S. needed to not only play defense but go on offense to the attacks. 

"We have to stop trying to just play better and better defense," he told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo. "We need to start going on offense."

"We need to start imposing consequences for those that are stealing our technology, spying on us, and now with a program called Volt Typhoon, is putting cyber time bombs on our critical infrastructure, like our water, our grid and our ports," Waltz said.

"America can’t afford to just play defense on cyber anymore. We’ve got to go on the offensive and impose COSTS on those who are stealing our technology and attacking our infrastructure," he added on X.

Trump has proposed a 60% tariff on U.S. imports from China. Last month, the Biden administration issued its most stringent crackdown yet on China's semiconductor industry with the intent of hindering its ability to develop AI for modern military uses.

The White House said Friday that a ninth U.S. telecommunications company has been hacked as part of a Chinese espionage campaign that gave the country's officials access to private texts and phone conversations of Americans.

The Biden administration said earlier this month that at least eight telecommunications companies and dozens of nations had been impacted by the Chinese hacking operation known as Salt Typhoon.

On Friday, deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger told reporters that a ninth victim had been identified after the administration released guidance to companies about how to locate Chinese hackers in their networks.

The hackers compromised the networks of telecommunications companies to gather customer call records and access the private communications of a limited number of people, officials said.

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The FBI has not publicly identified any of the victims, but officials believe senior U.S. government officials and prominent political figures are among the victims whose communications were accessed.

Neuberger said officials did not yet have a precise sense of how many Americans overall were targeted by Salt Typhoon, in part because the hackers were careful about their methods, but she said that a "large number" of the victims were in Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

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Officials said they believe the hackers wanted to identify who owned the devices and spy on their texts and phone calls if they were "government targets of interest," Neuberger said.

Most of the victims are "primarily involved in government or political activity," the FBI said.

Neuberger said the hacking showed the need for required cybersecurity practices in the telecommunications industry, which the Federal Communications Commission is set to look at during a meeting next month.

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She also said, without offering details, that the government was planning further action in the coming weeks in response to the hacking campaign, though she did not say what they were.

"We know that voluntary cybersecurity practices are inadequate to protect against China, Russia and Iran hacking of our critical infrastructure," she said.

The Chinese government has denied responsibility for the hacking campaign.

Cybersecurity has been a major subject of discussion in recent years, with purported Chinese spy balloons floating overhead, a major Appalachian oil pipeline hacked with ransomware and questions about mysterious drones over New Jersey skies. 

But one overlooked area of focus in this regard is agriculture, several prominent figures have said — especially with America’s ag states primed to lend their top political leaders to Washington in the new year.

Dakota State University President Jose-Marie Griffiths told Fox News Digital how important the heartland has become geopolitically, with several Dakotans gaining leadership or cabinet roles in the new year — including Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., chairing the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity.

"I said quite a lot in the past and in [congressional] testimony about my concerns about agriculture and food production’s critical infrastructure, which came rather late to the cybersecurity critical infrastructure table," Griffiths said.

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"People [will] start to realize the agricultural vehicles they're using increasingly are autonomous and connecting to broadband [via] satellite — and other ways that these become vulnerable. And for people who wish to do us harm, they're exploiting vulnerabilities as much as they can."

Residents across the heartland pay much more attention to the threats China and other rivals pose to the U.S. agriculture sector, she said. 

With advancements in technology, hackers can now find their way into harvesters, granaries and the nation’s freight-train network, Griffiths and Rounds said separately.

Whether the cash crop is Pennsylvania potatoes, Florida oranges or Dakotan wheat, all are crucial to the U.S. economy and supply chain, and all can be subject to cyberthreats, Griffiths suggested.

Rounds told Fox News Digital he has studied for some time the potential vulnerabilities of the American agriculture sector when it comes to foreign actors and cybersecurity.

"It’s more than just the vehicles and so forth," he said.

"A lot of it has to do with the infrastructure that we rely on. A good example is your water systems; your electrical systems... All of those right now are connected and they all have cyber-points-of-entry. 

"And so, we have been, for an extended period of time, looking at threats that could come from overseas by adversaries that would like to infiltrate not only the water supplies, but also the electrical systems… and in some cases, sewer systems."

Rounds said he and other lawmakers have been focused on where malign actors can proverbially "shoot the arrows at us," and figure out who they are and how to stop them.

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He said the Chinese firm Huawei had been selling cheap hardware to rural telecom entities and could be able to infiltrate communications systems.

"Once we found out that that was in there… that they could be putting in latent materials that could be activated at a later date, we've gotten most of them pulled out. But that's just one example of the ways in which rural areas can be a way into the rest of our communication systems," he said.

Rounds said drones are becoming increasingly used in agriculture, and they, too, have the danger of being hacked.

Vehicles like harvesters and tractors have also greatly advanced technologically in the near term and face similar challenges.

"A lot of that right now is done with GPS. You get into your tractor, you plug it in and basically it'll drive it for you. We leave people in those tractors, but at some stage of the game, some of those might very well become autonomous as well — and they're subject to cyber-intervention…" he said.

Grain elevators also can be interfered with, which stymies marketing and transportation, and endangers the greater supply chain and the ability for a farmer to sell on the open market, Rounds said.

Asked if he preferred today’s agriculture sector to the era before automation, Rounds said it’s not about what he thinks, but what is going to happen in the future.

"We will have more and more autonomous vehicles being used in farming. And the reason is we don't have the manpower — and we replace it with machinery. The machinery is going to get bigger. It's going to become more sophisticated, and we're going to be expected to do more things with fewer people actually operating them.," he said.

"The supply chain is so critical. We rely on autonomy in many cases for a lot of the delivery of our resources, both to the farmer, but also back out from the farmer in terms of a commodity that he wants to market."

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If that new technologically-advanced system malfunctions or is hacked, it will greatly disrupt the ability to provide the raw materials to the people and companies "actually making the bread" and such.

Amit Yoran, CEO of exposure management firm Tenable, recently testified before the House Homeland Security Committee and spoke at length about cyber threats to critical U.S. infrastructure.

Asked about cybersecurity in the agriculture realm, Yoran told Fox News Digital recently that there is "no singular defense paradigm that could effectively be applied across all sectors."

"Some critical infrastructure providers have a high degree of cybersecurity preparedness, strong risk understanding and risk management practices, and very strong security programs. Others are woefully ill-prepared," said Yoran, whose company is based in Howard County, Maryland.

China is the most active and persistent cyberthreat to American critical infrastructure, but that threat has changed over the last two decades, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says.

"I do not think it is possible to design a foolproof system, but I do not think that should be the goal. The goal should be to make it very difficult to get in," Cris Thomas, sometimes known as Space Rogue, a member of L0pht Heavy Industries, said during testimony before the Governmental Affairs Committee May 19, 1998.

L0pht Heavy Industries was part of one of the first congressional hearings on cybersecurity threats. Members of the group warned it was possible to take down the internet in 30 minutes and that it was nearly impossible to make a defense system that was 100% foolproof. It also had difficulties when it came to tracking where threats came from.

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"Backtracking and reverse hacking is a relatively tricky area. Based upon the relatively antiquated protocols that you are dealing with, there is not a tremendous amount of information as to where things came from, just that they came," said another member of the group, Peiter Zatko, who testified under his codename, "Mudge."

By the time the hearing took place, China was likely already at work. In the early 2000s, the U.S. government became aware of Chinese espionage targeting government entities. One string of operations known as Titan Rain started as early as 2003 and included hacks on the U.S. departments of State, Homeland Security and Energy. The public became aware of the attacks several years later.

Around that time, the current CISA Director, Jen Easterly, was deployed to Iraq to investigate how terrorists were using new technology.

"I actually started in the world of counterterrorism, and I was deployed to Iraq and saw how terrorists were using communications technologies for recruitment and radicalization and operationalizing improvised explosive devices," Easterly said.

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At that time the U.S. government was investing in cyberwarfare. The Bush administration had ordered studies on computer network attacks, but officials eventually expressed concern over the amount of damage those attacks could cause. Instead, the U.S. moved to a more defensive posture that focused on defending against attacks.

"When I stood at the Army's first cyber Battalion and was involved in the stand-up of U.S. Cyber Command, we were very focused on nation-state adversaries," Easterly said. "Back then, China was really an espionage threat that we were focused on."

Threats from China would eventually intensify. According to the Council on Foreign Relations’ cyber operations tracker, in the early 2000s, China’s cyber campaigns mostly focused on spying on government agencies.

"Officials have rated China's aggressive and wide-ranging espionage as the leading threat to U.S. technology," Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., warned in 2007.

By then, China had a history of spying on U.S. innovation and using it to replicate its own infrastructure. In 2009, Chinese hackers were suspected of stealing information from Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter Program. Over the years, China has debuted fighter jets that look and operate like U.S. planes.

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"China is the preeminent threat to the U.S.," Easterly said. "We are laser-focused on doing everything we can to identify Chinese activity, to eradicate it and to make sure we can defend our critical infrastructure from Chinese cyber actors."

In 2010, China shifted its targets to the public sector and began targeting telecommunications companies. Operation Aurora was a series of cyberattacks in which actors conducted phishing campaigns and compromised the networks of companies like Yahoo, Morgan Stanley, Google and dozens more. Google left China after the hacks and has yet to return its operations to the country. By the turn of a new decade, evidence showed China was also spying on critical infrastructure in the U.S. and abroad.

"Now we are looking at them as a threat to do disruptive and destructive operations here in the U.S. That is really an evolution that, frankly, I was not tracking and was pretty surprised when we saw this campaign," Easterly said.

The Council on Foreign Relations Cyber Operation Tracker reveals China has frequently targeted trade operations and military operations in the South China Sea, and one of its favorite targets in the past decade has been Taiwan.

"We have seen these actors burrowing deep into our critical infrastructure," Easterly said. "It's not for espionage, it's not for data theft. It's specifically so that they can launch disruptive or destructive attacks in the event of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait."

Taiwan is the world’s largest producer of semiconductors, and data shows how China has spied on all companies involved in all parts of that supply chain from mining to semiconductor producers.

"A war in Asia could have very real impacts on the lives of Americans. You could see pipelines blowing up, trains getting derailed, water getting polluted. It really is part of China's plan to ensure they can incite societal panic and deter our ability to marshal military might and citizen will. This is the most serious threat that I have seen in my career," Easterly said.

China’s public and private sector are closely intertwined by regulation, unlike in the U.S., where partnerships are key for defense.

"At the end of the day, it is a team sport. We work very closely with our intelligence community and our military partners at U.S. Cyber Command. And we have to work together to ensure that we are leveraging the full tools across the U.S. government and, of course, working with our private sector partners," Easterly said. 

"They own the vast majority of our critical infrastructure. They are on the front lines of it. And, so, ensuring that we have very robust operational collaboration with the private sector is critical to our success in ensuring the safety and security of cyberspace."