China Accuses NSA of Cyberattacks on National Time Service Center

China’s State Security Ministry has accused the U.S. National Security Agency of conducting a cyber operation against the country’s National Time Service Center between 2023 and 2024. The center, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, generates and distributes the national standard of time used by critical sectors including communications, defense and finance.

According to the Chinese agency’s WeChat post (first reported by news outlets), the alleged campaign used roughly 42 types of “special cyberattack weapons” to infiltrate the Time Service Center. The ministry warned that such interference could have led to disruptions in network communications, financial systems and power supply. It also claimed the NSA exploited vulnerabilities in a foreign mobile brand’s messaging system to steal data from staff devices, without naming the brand.

• Target: National Time Service Center (part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences)
• Alleged timeframe: 2023–2024
• Claimed tools: ~42 types of cyberattack methods
• Potential impact: disruption to communications, finance, power; data theft from staff devices

The NSA has not publicly responded to the accusation. Separately, U.S. officials have said the Treasury Department was targeted by a China-linked actor in a December attack. These reciprocal claims come amid rising geopolitical and cyber tensions between the two countries.

Why this matters: time infrastructure underpins many critical systems. Manipulating or disrupting official time sources can cause cascading failures — incorrect timestamps can break transaction ordering in finance, desynchronize communications networks, and interfere with time-sensitive control systems. Attacks on timing services are therefore a high-risk vector in modern cyber conflict.

For more details, see the original report: Engadget: China claims the NSA conducted cyberattacks on its National Time Center.

Key questions: How should governments protect national time services? What rules, transparency or international norms are needed to prevent cyber operations from targeting critical time and synchronization infrastructure?

Discussion: What do you think is the best way for countries and companies to defend critical time infrastructure against state-level cyber operations?