PRC-sponsored Volt Typhoon activity and supplemental living off the land guidance
Published Sources: NCSC NZ
What is affected, what to do
PRC-sponsored Volt Typhoon activity and supplemental living off the land guidance The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has joined international partners in publishing the following advice and guidance: Joint cyber security advisory: People's Republic of China State-Sponsored Cyber Actor Living off the Land to Evade Detection [PDF, 723 KB] PRC state-sponsored actors compromise and maintain persistent access to U.S. critical infrastructure [PDF, 1.6 MB] Joint guidance - Identifying and mitigating Living Off the Land (LOTL) techniques. People's Republic of China State-Sponsored Cyber activity: actions for critical infrastructure leaders [PDF, 561 KB] What's happening Systems affected The joint advice and guidance outlines common techniques and gaps in cyber defence capabilities.
The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below.
Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability
Metrics
—
Priority
No value is available for this vulnerability.
—
CVSS v3
No value is available for this vulnerability.
—
EPSS score
No value is available for this vulnerability.
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Not rated
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 4.44 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- no public PoC known
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- —
- Published
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- Handle the vulnerability in regular vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2.
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
PRC-sponsored Volt Typhoon activity and supplemental living off the land guidance The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has joined international partners in publishing the following advice and guidance: Joint cyber security advisory: People's Republic of China State-Sponsored Cyber Actor Living off the Land to Evade Detection [PDF, 723 KB] PRC state-sponsored actors compromise and maintain persistent access to U.S. critical infrastructure [PDF, 1.6 MB] Joint guidance - Identifying and mitigating Living Off the Land (LOTL) techniques. People's Republic of China State-Sponsored Cyber activity: actions for critical infrastructure leaders [PDF, 561 KB] What's happening Systems affected The joint advice and guidance outlines common techniques and gaps in cyber defence capabilities. It provides guidance for network defenders to detect and hunt for LOTL activity and mitigate associated risks. Authoring agencies released this advice for network defenders, including threat hunters, following identification of cyber threat actors — including state-sponsored actors from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Russian Federation — using LOTL techniques in compromised critical infrastructure organisations. The joint advisory, PRC state-sponsored actors compromise and maintain persistent access to U.S. critical infrastructure, urges critical infrastructure organisations to apply the outlined mitigations and hunt for malicious activity in parallel with the LOTL guidance. What this means The authoring agencies strongly urge critical infrastructure organisations to follow the prioritised best practice security measures and detection guidance to hunt for potential LOTL activity. These recommendations form part of a broader cybersecurity strategy designed to support more effective data correlation and analysis. What to look for How to tell if you're at risk The advisory outlines how LOTL techniques have been used to compromise critical infrastructure. IT and OT administrators in critical infrastructure organisations should review the guidance to identify signs of exposure or unauthorised access within their environments. What to do Prevention Organisations should apply the mitigations listed in both advisories to reduce the likelihood and impact of future compromises or to detect and respond to malicious activity if it has already occurred. Following this guidance will help disrupt Volt Typhoon’s access and reduce threats to critical infrastructure entities. If activity is identified, organisations are strongly encouraged to apply the incident response recommendations and report the incident to incidents@ncsc.govt.nz More information Identifying and mitigating living off the land [PDF, 723 KB] and PRC state-sponsored actors compromise and maintain persistent access to U.S. critical infrastructure [PDF, 1.6 MB]