The Chinese regime is using criminal contract hackers as part of its state-backed cyberattacks against targets around the world, senior Biden administration officials said on July 18. China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), the regime’s chief intelligence agency, is behind the deployment of these hackers, the officials added. And their targets include managed service providers, semiconductor companies, defense corporations, universities, and medical institutions, according to a U.S. government cybersecurity advisory. “These cyber operations support China’s long-term economic and military development objectives,” the advisory explained. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has set out different policies and industrial road maps with the goal of achieving “socialist modernization” by 2035 and becoming a “global leader in innovation.” Some of the cyberattacks are ransomware operations, which involve malicious actors encrypting victims’ data and making it inaccessible. The actors then demand ransom in exchange for decryption. According to the officials, some private companies were asked …