China’s strategic plan to infiltrate the U.S. cyber infrastructure includes attempts to induce panic and unsettle everyday American life, a witness testified to Congress on Wednesday.

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that ransomware attacks on U.S. businesses or critical systems are intended to ‘induce societal panic.’

‘It is Chinese military doctrine to attempt to induce societal panic in their adversary. And arguably, the Chinese government got a little bit of a taste of this in the aftermath of the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline in May of 2021 that shut down gas to the Eastern seaboard for several days,’ she said, noting Americans ‘couldn’t get to work. They couldn’t take their kids to school, get folks to the hospital. It caused a bit of panic.’

‘Now imagine that on a massive scale. Imagine not one pipeline, but many pipelines disrupted and telecommunications going down so people can’t use their cell phone. People start getting sick from polluted water. Trains get derailed. Air traffic control system, port control systems are malfunctioning,’ Easterly continued. ‘This is truly an everything, everywhere all at once scenario.’

Easterly was one of four witnesses at ‘The CCP Cyber Threat to the American Homeland and National Security’ hearing, joining General Paul Nakasone, Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command; FBI Director Christopher Wray; and Harry Coker, Jr., director of the White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director.

During the same hearing, the FBI director echoed these sentiments, saying there is much more Congress and the rest of the federal government need to do to ensure Americans are safe from potential cyber threats posed by the Chinese government.

Wray also announced that his bureau effectively eliminated a Chinese malware attack on small businesses located in the U.S.

‘Just this morning, we [the FBI] announced an operation where we and our partners identified hundreds of routers that had been taken over by the PRC state-sponsored hacking group known as Volt Typhoon. The Volt Typhoon malware enabled China to hide, among other things, pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation against critical infrastructure like our communications, energy, transportation and water sectors,’ he said.

Wray specified that the hacking group intended to ‘find and prepare to destroy or degrade the civilian critical infrastructure that keeps us safe and prosperous.’

He continued: ‘And let’s be clear, cyber threats to our critical infrastructure represent real-world threats to our physical safety. So working with our partners, the FBI shut down Volt Typhoon and the access that enabled this operation was an important step, but there’s a whole lot more to do and we need your help to do it.’

Putting the cyber disparity between China and the U.S. into context, Wray said China, formally the People’s Republic of China (PRC), has a much larger cyber force that remains dedicated and funded to dominate the cyber realm. He said the U.S., even if it were to dedicate all of its cyber personnel to China, would still be outnumbered ‘by at least 50-to-1.’

‘To quantify what we’re up against, the PRC has a bigger hacking program than that of every major nation combined. In fact, if you took every one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intelligence analysts and focused them exclusively heavily on the China threat, China’s hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50-to-1,’ the director said.

Wray said any continued cyber defense should include the American public, noting only the government and the private sector could effectively protect against the potential Chinese threat.

Gen. Nakasone also answered a question about how to protect from the potential threat, emphasizing the need to renew Section 702, a provision of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.

‘Section 702 is the most important authority that the National Security Agency uses every single day to keep Americans safe and to secure our nation,’ he said.

‘As someone who was at the Pentagon on 9/11 to consider that we would return to the days before Section 702 where we couldn’t connect the dots is almost inexplicable to me,’ Nakasone  continued. ‘The other piece that I would add to your question is [Section] 702 is so agile that it provides us an ability to see the Chinese chemicals that are being used to feed fentanyl, which is the scourge of our nation. More than 100,000 Americans lost their lives in 2022. [Section] 702 allows us to identify those precursor issues that saves lives.’

The general also described the surveillance authority enumerated in Section 702 as ‘the most transparent, the effective, the most important authority.’ 

‘It balances civil liberties and privacy and the requirements of our national security,’ he said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., gave a harsh rebuke to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the onset of Wednesday’s highly anticipated Big Tech hearing on child exploitation online.

‘Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us. I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands,’ Graham, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, garnering applause from the audience. ‘You have a product that’s killing people.’ 

Graham referenced South Carolina state Rep. Brandon Guffey, who is suing Instagram after his 17-year-old son Gavin died by suicide after falling victim to an extortion group from Nigeria operating through the Meta-owned app. 

‘They threatened the young man that if you don’t give us money, we’re going to expose these photos. He gave them money, but it wasn’t enough. They kept threatening, and he killed himself. They threatened Mr. Guffey and a son. These are bastards. By any known definition,’ Graham said. 

Graham noted that Congress has taken action to regulate cigarettes and tobacco and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulates guns, yet social media companies are largely shielded from being held liable in court under Section 230 of Title 47 of the United States Code that was enacted as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. 

‘The bottom line is you can’t be sued. You should be. And these emails would be great for punitive damages,’ Graham said, referencing Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., whom he dubbed the ‘dynamic duo’ for recently releasing 90 pages of internal emails from fall 2021 showing top Meta officials weighing the addition of dozens of engineers and other employees to focus on children’s well-being and safety. The emails show that one proposal to Zuckerberg for 45 new staff members was declined.

‘But the courtroom’s closed to every American abused by all the companies in front of me. Of all the people in America we could give blanket liability protection to, this would be the last group I would pick. It is now time to repeal Section 230,’ Graham said. 

‘We live in an America in 2024 where there is no regulatory body dealing with the most profitable, biggest companies in the history of the world,’ Graham said. ‘They can’t be sued. And there’s not one law on the books that’s meaningful in protecting the American consumer.’ 

Zuckerberg did not address Graham’s ‘blood on your hands comment’ directly in his own opening statement. 

‘Over the last eight years, we’ve built more than 30 different tools, resources and features that parents can set time limits for their teens using our apps, see who they’re following, or if they report someone for bullying,’ Zuckerberg said in part. 

‘Mental health is a complex issue and the existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link between using social media and young people having worse mental health outcomes. A recent National Academies of Science report evaluated over 300 studies and found that research, quote, ‘did not support the conclusion that social media causes changes in adolescent mental health and also suggested that social media can provide significant positive benefits when young people use it to express themselves, explore and connect with others.’’ he said. 

‘Still, we’re going to continue to monitor the research and use it to inform our roadmap. Keeping people safe has been a challenge since the internet began. As criminals evolve their tactics, we have to evolve our defenses to comply with law enforcement to find bad actors and help bring them to justice. But the difficult reality is that no matter how much we invest or how effective our tools are, there are always more. There’s always more to learn and more improvements to make.’ 

‘We have around 40,000 people overall working on safety and security. We’ve invested more than $20 billion in this since 2016, including around $5 billion in the last year alone. We have many teams dedicated to child safety in all three and a lot of areas,’ Zuckerberg said. ‘Parents should have the final say on what apps are appropriate for their children and shouldn’t have to upload their ID every time. That’s what app stores are for.’ 

Iranian officials warned that Tehran would decisively respond to any U.S. attacks, as President Biden vowed unspecified action following the deaths of three American soldiers in Jordan.

‘We hear threats coming from American officials, we tell them that they have already tested us, and we now know one another, no threat will be left unanswered,’ Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ chief Hossein Salami said on Wednesday, Reuters reported, citing the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

‘We are not after war, but we have no fear of war,’ Salami, who answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said at an event Wednesday, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. 

Another warning came from Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York. 

‘The Islamic Republic would decisively respond to any attack on the country, its interests and nationals under any pretexts,’ Iravani said, according to the IRNA. He described any possible Iranian retaliation as a ‘strong response,’ without elaborating. He gave a briefing to Iranian journalists late Tuesday, according to IRNA. 

Iravani also denied that Iran and the U.S. had exchanged any messages over the last few days, either through intermediaries or directly. The pan-Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera, which is based in and funded by Qatar, reported earlier that such communication had taken place. Qatar often serves as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran.

Such messages have not been exchanged,’ Iravani said.

On Saturday, a general in charge of Iran’s air defenses described them as being at their ‘highest defensive readiness.’ That raises concerns for commercial aviation traveling through and over Iran as well. After a 2020 U.S. drone strike in Baghdad killed Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Iranian air defenses mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing all 176 people on board. 

In response to the 2020 U.S. strike, Iranian Revolutionary Guards also targeted the Ain al-Asad U.S. base in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters as he left the White House on a campaign trip to Florida Tuesday, Biden vowed to reporters he decided how to respond after three U.S. service members were killed and more than 40 others were injured in a drone strike by Iranian-backed militants on a post in Jordan near the Syrian border crucial to the anti-ISIS mission in the region. 

The president did not elaborate. Meanwhile, attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels continue in the Red Sea, most recently targeting a U.S. warship. The missile launched Tuesday night targeted the USS Gravely, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, the U.S. military’s Central Command said in a statement.

‘There were no injuries or damage reported,’ the statement said.

A Houthi military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, claimed the attack in a statement Wednesday morning, calling it ‘a victory for the oppression of the Palestinian people and a response to the American-British aggression against our country.’ Saree claimed the Houthis fired ‘several’ missiles, something not acknowledged by the U.S. Navy. Houthi claims have been exaggerated in the past, and their missiles sometimes crash on land and fail to reach their targets. 

The Houthis claimed without evidence on Monday to have targeted the USS Lewis B. Puller, a floating landing base used by the Navy SEALs and others. The U.S. said there had been no attack. Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea over Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza. But they have frequently targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, imperiling shipping in a key route for global trade between Asia, the Mideast and Europe.

The Houthis hit a commercial vessel with a missile on Friday, sparking a fire that burned for hours.

Five members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been killed following Israeli strikes in Syria since late December, according to Reuters. 

The Tasnim news agency reported Monday that another Israeli strike hit an ‘Iranian military advisory center’ in Syria, killing two. Iran’s envoy to Syria denied the details on the target and said those killed were not Iranians, according to Reuters.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

FBI Director Christopher Wray is set to warn lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday that Chinese hackers are preparing to ‘wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities.’ 

Wray and other government officials are set to testify in front of the House Select Committee at 11 a.m. for a hearing titled ‘The Chinese Community Party Cyber Threat to the American Homeland and National Security.’ 

‘There has been far too little public focus on the fact that People’s Republic of China hackers are targeting our critical infrastructure — our water treatment plants, our electrical grid, our oil and natural gas pipelines, our transportation systems. And the risk that poses to every American requires our attention – now,’ Wray is expected to tell lawmakers in an excerpt from his remarks. 

‘China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if or when China decides the time has come to strike,’ he will add. 

NEW GROUP LAUNCHES TO COMBAT CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY INFLUENCE ACROSS US 

Wray is also expected to say that ‘today, and literally every day’ Chinese hackers are ‘actively attacking our economic security, engaging in wholesale theft of our innovation, and our personal and corporate data.’ 

‘And they don’t just hit our security and economy. They target our freedoms, reaching inside our borders, across America, to silence, coerce, and threaten our citizens and residents,’ Wray will add in his testimony. 

CHINESE HACKERS OUTNUMBER FBI CYBER PERSONNEL ‘BY AT LEAST 50 TO 1,’ WRAY TESTIFIES 

Wray previously testified in April last year that FBI agents are outnumbered by ‘at least 50 to 1’ when attempting to address the threat China poses to critical infrastructure through its cyber hacking practices, and said Beijing has stolen more personal and corporate data from the U.S. than any other nation. 

‘They’ve got a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined and have stolen more of our personal and corporate data than all other nations – big or small combined,’ he said during a House Appropriations Committee hearing at the time. 

‘To give you a sense of what we’re up against, if each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intel analysts focused exclusively on the China threat – on nothing but China – Chinese hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1,’ Wray testified. 

Fox News’ David Spunt and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.