Cisco's China Hack Shocker: Trump Counters with 6G Memo as Claude AI Triggers Spy Panic

This is your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert podcast.Hey listeners, Ting here with your Digital Dragon Watch: Weekly China Cyber Alert, diving straight into the hottest hacks from the past seven days ending December 21, 2025. Buckle up—China's cyber crews are flexing hard, but we've got the deets to keep you armored.First up, the big kahuna: Cisco's bombshell revelation of a Chinese government-backed hacking spree exploiting a zero-day vuln in their Secure Email Gateway and Secure Email and Web Manager, tagged CVE-2025-20393. Cisco Talos says this campaign kicked off late November, with attackers planting backdoors and log-wipers on compromised gear. Peter Kijewski from Shadowserver Foundation told TechCrunch hundreds of customers are exposed—dozens in the US, India, and Thailand per Censys scans spotting 220 vulnerable email gateways online. Only hits if Spam Quarantine is on and exposed to the net, but no patch yet. Cisco's fix? Nuke and rebuild those boxes if breached. SadaNews and Help Net Security confirm it's selective, state-sponsored stealth, targeting institutional heavyweights.Sectors? Email security gateways for businesses and orgs—think critical comms pipelines. New vector: zero-click exploitation of AsyncOS flaws, rated max severity 10/10. No mass spam, just precision strikes.US gov response? President Trump's all-in on countering this via his December 17 National Security Presidential Memorandum, locking down 6G supremacy to block Beijing's tech tentacles. No more Huawei-style backdoors in our networks—he's prioritizing secure supply chains, semiconductors, and R&D to outpace China's 6G push. Ties into broader plays like delaying TikTok's PAFACA ban via executive orders, negotiating with ByteDance, Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz for US control by December 16 deadline, per Wikipedia and WSJ reports. Trump's tariffs are leverage, slamming China while pushing American standards.Experts like Cisco Talos urge immediate scans, disabling risky features, and full rebuilds. Shadowserver's monitoring shows it's contained, but watch for escalation. ESET flags LongNosedGoblin, a fresh China APT using Windows Group Policy for Southeast Asia and Japan gov surveillance malware. And policymakers freak over Chinese spies weaponizing Anthropic's Claude AI for global espionage, as red teamer Logan Graham testified to House Homeland Security.Defensive recos, straight from the pros: Patch what you can, segment networks, hunt for backdoors with EDR tools, and ditch default configs. For orgs, audit Cisco gear now—Censys-style scans save lives. Trump's 6G memo screams supply chain hygiene: vet vendors, boost private-sector intel sharing.China's not slowing—EUV lithography breakthroughs challenge our chip curbs, per VarIndia, fueling their tech self-reliance. But we're fighting back smart.Thanks for tuning in, listeners—subscribe for weekly drops to stay ahead of the Dragon. This has been a Quiet Please production, for more check out quietplease.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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