China is suspected of hacking the electronics of a yacht owned by a Chinese billionaire targeted by Beijing.
Guo Wengui, who uses the English name Miles Kwok, said several incidents involving his 152-foot motor yacht, Lady May, appear to be part of a Chinese government effort to threaten and intimidate him.
The suspicious hacking took place in July on the Hudson River near New York City and left the ship temporarily unable to turn and in danger of colliding with nearby freighter…
The hacking of the ship’s computerized steering controls was especially alarming. The incident was outlined in a report and PowerPoint presentation, including photos and videos, provided by Guo.
Disclosure of the suspected yacht hacking comes as the Navy is investigating with external electronic hacking who is involved in two similar collisions between U.S. Navy destroyers and commercial ships that killed 17 American sailors. One of the warships, the USS John S. McCain had been involved in an operation to sail close to a disputed Chinese island in the South China Sea days before the collision…
A technician then discovered that the thrusters were functioning but control over them had been disconnected from the bridge…
The captain reversed the ship down river and was eventually able to direct the bow toward shore and a safer location.
At the time, a large liquefied natural gas ship was located around 300 feet from the Lady May, prompting fears of a collision…
The report stated that the ship’s controls were hacked by an unknown third party that gained access to the ship’s computer system, possibly using a mobile phone…
The Lady May’s chief engineer, Craig Rehaume, said in a statement that as soon as Guo arrived on the yacht that day, the ship’s Wi-Fi network went offline, apparently disrupted from an external source. The network service was eventually restored but operated intermittently.
In a bid to locate the source of the electronic disruption, the cell phones of all passengers on the yacht were moved to a small dingy away from the ship…
The engineer said the disruption continued after Guo’s phone was powered off. Only when the sim card was removed and the suspect phone wrapped in metal foil, did the network begin operating properly, Rehaume said.
Then on July 29, according to Hurn, the yacht captain, the Lady May was intercepted by a quadcopter drone as the vessel sailed near the Bear Mountain Bridge along the Hudson. The drone aircraft followed the vessel upriver for about 20 minutes. The drone was “doing small loops around the vessel and coming very close to the vessel looking into the bridge and exterior window,” Hurn said.
The captain noted that the drone operator demonstrated extreme confidence in flying the aircraft and was able to keep it very stable and within three to six feet from the ship.
Again on July 31 as the Lady May sailed down the river past the Bear Mountain Bridge another drone similar to the first one also followed the ship. Hurn said he believed the drone was controlled from land and flew off after around 20 minutes…
“American bureaucracy and red tape have enabled Chinese hackers and property stealers not only to be able to steal American property, but to kill any American if they so wish,” he said. “It is high time that this clear and present danger be understood and seen clearly and be changed.”
Makes you wonder about the US Navy Destroyers. We could be, right now, at the precipice of a World War with China, and not even know it. If China killed 17 of our Service members, there would be no choice. And yet, it appears that between the power of technology in the hands of individual agents as a force multiplier, and the extent of the US infiltration with foreign agents, the next war will be like no other.
The Chinese guy’s boat was nice:
I remember Donald Trump years back being asked about his mega-yacht, that he had sold off. He tersely replied that he was just not a yacht guy, and didn’t like the lifestyle.
But I see other reasons. First off, is the fact that there are no Forth Amendment protections for individual citizens when you are traveling on the water, even if what you are traveling in happens to be your effective home, and you are in US territorial waters. Not a big deal if you are a regular dude minding your own business who nobody cares about, but a billionaire businessman with an intel-awareness and secrets to keep, who might run for office one day might see it differently.
Then there is the fact that a yacht this size will require periodic service. One service will be to get pulled from the water, so the bottom can be scrapped and repainted with a special toxic paint coating that repels marine growth. Small sailboats can be pulled in a myriad of yards, which routinely have machines like this for just this purpose:
But a yacht of this size will only be able to be pulled in a few yards, due to the length, weight, draft required at the yard’s waters, and the beam. If you had a boat like this, you might think, “What are the chances an intel agency would be able to access the yacht after you put it in the yard?” It seems unlikely they would have employees in every yard for just such a purpose, and breaking in would be a risk, given such yards would have good security.
To you, intelligence is some vague, distant, arcane field that nobody ever encounters. But intel professionals show up to work and do intel every day. To them it isn’t something they are making up as they go along. No operation is their first rodeo. They have decades of experience finding shortcuts and seeing places they should have ready access to.
Each operation will have exposed areas in society, that had they prepositioned operators in deep cover, they could have made the operation infinitely easier. Some positions will be cost-effective ways to facilitate future operations, and some will not. But each day will be a learning experience.
Given there are few yards that service yachts this size, it would not take much in the way of resources to either get an operator or two hired on at each yard, or recruit assets from each yard’s employees. Get an officer trained on the complex electronic systems of mega-yachts, and backstop him with a resume showing experience in the field, and he can begin a long career which will have him crawling around inside boats like this and accessing their computer systems freely, with the owner’s consent no less. So would that be cost effective?
Consider, who takes their yachts to yards like this? This specific boat was listed on Boat International for almost $40 million dollars, and that price is actually cheap, driven down by the undesirability of the massive maintenance costs a yacht like this requires yearly, simply to not lose the majority of its value in a year or two. So those few yards are a place where the very small number of ultra-rich, super-powerful people who can afford yachts like this travel to, and surrender control over their effective homes, to individuals who are allowed full access to all the rooms and systems.
Personally, I would be shocked if foreign intel agencies were not constantly trying to place agents in those yards in intelligence operations, and oust other agencies’ agents in counter-intelligence operations, to maintain control of the venue.
Meanwhile guys like this, with yachts that can be remotely controlled by their computerized systems, and potentially driven into LNG container ships, are getting on their boats, and being surprised to find they are under the thumbs of individuals who are playing a game they never even considered.
It is a crazy world out there, and getting crazier every day.
People think that this whiz-bang world of high tech is permanent. Look at the Experian hack; we don’t need “AI” terminators to exist in order to be threatened by our technological conveniences.
Our future probably involves a massive rollback of all this, out of self-preservation.
This is all especially dangerous as Naval supremacy is the main advantage the US has over China. China has a larger army and probably more drones and combat aircraft (although they are much lower quality). It takes years to build ships, and they are very expensive- so losing a few through cyber espionage/sabotage is very damaging to a military. If the US loses a few more ships power projection in the Pacific will grind to a halt, and give China a free hand towards expansionism. Mr. Wengui was attempting to flee China and gain asylum in the US after all.