A congressional probe of Chinese-built cargo cranes deployed at ports throughout the U.S. has found communications equipment that doesn’t appear to support normal operations, fueling concerns that the foreign machines may pose a covert national-security risk.
Non-paywalled coverage: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/07/politics/congressional-probe-communications-gear-chinese-cranes/index.html
But this is probably not related to espionage. As noted in the CNN article, it’s very common to have cell connections embedded in industrial hardware these days. Hell, OnStar has been doing it in cars for decades at this point.
But that’s not to say it’s nothing to worry about. These systems are also known to have terrible security, meaning any attacker could potentially access the system, not just China. And if this system collects data, or can control the crane, then there’s the possibility of having a very bad time.
The wsj article addressed that and said there’s a protocol for approving devices. These were found in devices that were not approved and where the users didn’t know there was connectivity.
Sometimes these kinds of stories are knee-jerk “China bad” stories. And sometimes they are much worse than reported, but downplayed to avoid embarrassment and panic. Hard to know which.
Our ports are also not very secure, so the Chinese could have potentially smuggled all sorts of espionage devices (as could other nations).