Chinese Regime’s Cyber Espionage Soars by 150 Percent, Report Says

‘China’s cyber espionage reached new levels of maturity, with adversaries maintaining a higher operational tempo,’ the report says.

An unnamed Chinese hacker uses a computer at an office in Dongguan, in Guangdong Province, China, on Aug. 4, 2020. Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images

Chinese cyberattacks on American interests surged by 150 percent in 2024, according to a new report.

The assessment by CrowdStrike, an American cybersecurity giant known for investigating high-profile cyber intrusions, notes that these incursions depart from traditional malware intrusions in favor of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered deceptions.

The AI-driven tactics are behind a 300 percent increase in attacks on U.S. financial, media, and industrial sectors.

The “2025 CrowdStrike Global Threat Report,” released on Feb. 27, refers to generative AI as the “new best friend” of malicious cyber entities, as it is being leveraged to create fictitious profiles, generate emails, and conduct social engineering, where it is “becoming more convincing.”

“China’s cyber espionage reached new levels of maturity, with adversaries maintaining a higher operational tempo,” the report says.

It further corroborates this assessment by pointing out that voice phishing, or “vishing attacks,” in which the perpetrators actually phone their victims, climbed by 442 percent, while intrusions associated with initial access accounted for 52 percent of all incidents documented by CrowdStrike in 2024.

The report notes that these attacks have now become a business, with advertisements promoting the services of “access brokers,” which have also increased by 50 percent.

CrowdStrike writes that these bad actors have become more brazen in their targeting, although stealthier in their operations.

The report highlights that cyber snooping is a key tool used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against “foreign political and military adversaries.” It points to the North Korean group Famous Chollima, which is known for embedding itself in U.S. companies.

In 2024, the group, with the help of AI, “created highly convincing fake IT job candidates,” which it then used to obstruct services around the last U.S. presidential election at the behest of China, Russia, and Iran.

Following President Donald Trump’s election victory, it appears that China-nexus groups no longer required intermediaries and became directly involved.

The Soufan Center, a nonprofit research and analysis organization, supports this notion in a January report showing that Chinese cyber intrusions increased significantly in the two weeks leading up to Trump’s inauguration.

CrowdStrike’s report further corroborates these claims, pointing out that the surge in attacks aligns with the CCP’s desire for increased regional influence.

It observes that the communist regime’s illicit cyber activities are consistent with China’s objective to absorb Taiwan, which, by extension, could lead to open military conflict with the United States.

In support of this claim, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau released a report in early January stating that it suffered an average of 2.4 million Chinese cyberattacks per day in 2024—double the amount experienced the previous year.

The CrowdStrike report also highlights that the use of AI in cyber snooping has bolstered the CCP’s political efforts domestically, where it is deployed to oppress members of the Falun Gong spiritual group, Uyghur Muslims, pro-democracy activists, Tibet, and Taiwan.

Beijing has not yet responded to the report. Still, its typical reaction to accusations regarding its cybercriminal activities has been denial, as it often chooses to project these accusations onto the United States or the United Kingdom.

However, this stance contradicts the CCP’s military doctrine, which includes terms like “information warfare” and “information-psychological operations.”

As a study by the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies states, the CCP’s doctrine “emphasizes using information to shape public opinion, influence decision-making processes, and achieve specific political and military objectives.”