China has accused the US of organizing a cyber attack against its National Time Service Center and stealing data from the center's staff for espionage purposes. The country's Ministry of State Security reported this on its official WeChat page.
According to an official statement from Beijing, the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been infiltrating the center's networks and employees' mobile devices to collect data since 2022. China emphasizes that US intelligence exploited a vulnerability in the messaging system of foreign-brand smartphones.
In 2023-2024, the US deeply infiltrated the center's internal networks and attempted to disable the high-precision time measurement system. These systems provide time synchronization for sectors such as communications, finance, transportation, and defense.
Washington has not yet officially responded to these accusations. The National Time Service Center is located in Xi'an City and is responsible for precise time synchronization across all of China.
