China's State Security Ministry: "U.S. Launched Cyberattack on National Time Service Center"

China's Ministry of State Security announced on October 19, 2025, that the United States had conducted a prolonged cyberattack against the National Time Service Center of China.

On this day, the Ministry of State Security issued a statement through its official WeChat account, revealing that the U.S. National Security Agency had exploited security vulnerabilities in the mobile phones of the center's staff since March 2022 to attack their devices and steal sensitive information.

The National Time Service Center, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and located in Xi'an, northwestern China, is responsible for generating, maintaining, and transmitting China's standard time.

Chinese authorities further stated that their investigation found the United States began attacking the center's internal network systems in 2023 and 2024, and also attempted attacks targeting high-precision ground-based time systems.

The Ministry of State Security added that it had taken anti-hacking measures in response.

Bloomberg News highlighted, "Such accusations from Chinese authorities come after Western governments and companies in recent years have claimed that Chinese hackers launched cyberattacks against their computer systems. These claims arise amid escalating tensions surrounding the U.S.-China trade conflict."

Meanwhile, the U.S. National Security Agency did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comment on the matter.