The New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell completed a report showing the frequency and severity of cyber attacks that target specific U.S. Critical Infrastructures due to geopolitical interests and competing strategic interest in the cyber realm. Below is a risk assessment by sector that shows China linked cyber attacks poses grave and exceptional threat to the U.S. and its interests.

China-linked cyber operations targeting US critical infrastructure (PDF), NJCCIC, May 2025.https://www.cyber.nj.gov/threat-landscape/nation-state-threat-analysis-reports/china-linked-cyber-operations-targeting-us-critical-infrastructure

Energy Sector- The energy sector is pivotal to sustaining life in the U.S. such as oil, natural gas, power grid and renewable energy. The energy sector operates industrial control systems, and SCADA system to name a few. The 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware attacks is a recent attack that shows the devastating consequences of the energy sector compromise.

Communications Sector- Chinese Advance Persistent Threats (APTs) constantly target this to undermine information delivery and communications-which is a huge source of intelligence. Recently, Microsoft Exchange and Fortinet FortiOS were subjected to these attacks.

Water and Wastewater– Chinese sponsored APTs are targeting water treatment facilities which rely on ICS and SCADA technologies. In 2023 attackers attacked a water treatment facility in Oldsmar, Florida and attempted to chance chemical dosing levels remotely.

Transportation- The transportation plays a key role in travel, fuel distribution, air traffic controls and other key areas. An attack on this infrastructure recently is Volt Typhoon in 2023 with attacked a rail signaling and port operations in Guam-directly related to US Pacific infrastructure