In late 2022, Microsoft detected the hack of a water system in Guam that U.S. intelligence agencies in the following months determined was orchestrated by China. The idea wasn’t new. The spy agencies had long watched as Iran targeted Israeli water systems.
“That another nation state was doing it to us — that was unsettling,” recalled one former U.S. official, who, like several others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
