Grandmas router banned, PlugX slims down, and AI jets lure spies - oh my! China cyber tea, piping hot

This is your China Hack Report: Daily US Tech Defense podcast.Today is November 2nd, 2025, and you’re plugged into the cyber trenches with me, Ting, your friendly neighborhood China cyberwatcher! Buckle up, because the past 24 hours have been a blizzard of digital drama—packed with new malware, warnings, emergency patches, and even router bans that’d make your grandma’s TP-Link quake.Let’s start with the most urgent news: the Department of Commerce, along with Defense and Homeland Security, is considering a total ban on TP-Link Wi-Fi routers in the U.S. after a recent inter-agency risk review flagged ongoing concerns about Chinese government influence over TP-Link’s American operations. Those routers, which anchor up to 65% of U.S. homes, might soon be in regulatory purgatory. For now, CISA and DHS both say: update your router firmware, nuke default passwords, and turn off remote management. These are your three-minute defensive actions—do them before your next coffee run, not after.Now malware. Over in the Windows Wild West, state-backed outfit UNC6384—yes, the Mustang Panda siblings—have been caught using a Windows shortcut exploit, CVE-2025-9491, to drop PlugX malware on diplomatic targets. The new hotness: shrunken PlugX payloads and ultra-stealthy deploy methods. Arctic Wolf found that the CanonStager loader dropped from a chonky 700 kilobytes to just 4 KB by last month, making it basically invisible to legacy defense tools. Microsoft confirms that Smart App Control and Defender will spot the attack chain, but only if you patch and don’t click random “EU coordination” invites. Social engineering plus PowerShell trickery equals diplomatic disaster.Meanwhile, CISA just added fresh pain to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. XWiki’s CVE-2025-24893 and VMware Aria’s CVE-2025-41244 are now seeing live attacks—get those patches installed now. CISA isn’t mincing words: attackers are moving faster than your IT department, so if you manage or use those platforms, patch or face uninvited guests.In nation-state espionage, Ribbon Communications just discovered that a 10-month-long breach, likely China-linked, exposed client communications for government and Fortune 500 targets. This is proof, yet again, that threat actors are getting better at hiding—moving laterally and lurking under the radar for months before blowing cover.In sector news, U.S. defense contractors—especially those dabbling in next-gen drone tech like Anduril’s YFQ-44A—remain red-hot targets. The debut of that autonomous AI fighter jet just three days ago was trumpeted as a win for U.S. innovation, but it’s also a glittering beacon for cyberespionage crews from China to Moscow. Spear-phishing around related defense programs is up, with CISA warning compliance teams to double scrutinize file shares and access requests tied to unmanned systems.Lastly, officials in Manila warned yesterday about a credible threat of DDoS attacks targeting public web infrastructure this coming week, a pattern that often foreshadows or overlaps with more sophisticated attacks elsewhere—so SOC teams, stay caffeinated and keep incident response scripts handy.Thanks for tuning in to China Hack Report: Daily US Tech Defense. Make sure to subscribe for your daily dose of what’s lurking behind the Great Firewall. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.For more http://www.quietplease.aiGet the best deals https://amzn.to/3ODvOtaThis content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI

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