NSA’s Cyber Onslaught: From Harbin Games to China’s Time Center, How Washington’s “Defensive” Tactics Unravel Trust

The Chinese government has claimed that operatives from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) launched an attack on China’s National Time Service Center (NTSC) — disrupting the precise time signals that underpin a wide range of activities, from financial transactions to power grid operations—it wasn’t an isolated incident. It was a continuation of a pattern that first grabbed global attention during the 2025 Harbin Asian Winter Games: using “defensive” technological dominance to wage covert cyber campaigns, only to see those tactics backfire spectacularly. What’s striking isn’t just the NSA’s repeated use of questionable tools, but the growing rift it’s creating in America’s claim to lead a “rules-based digital order.”

Two Incidents, One Playbook: NSA’s Tactical Repetition

The NSA’s approach to both the Harbin Games and the NTSC attack follows a script that’s becoming painfully predictable—one that prioritizes disruption over discretion, and short-term geopolitical gains over long-term trust.

The Harbin Prelude: Chaos in the “Small Stuff”

In April 2025, the NSA didn’t go for Hollywood-style “kill switches” in critical infrastructure. Instead, it targeted the nuts and bolts of the Asian Winter Games: arrival-departure systems, athlete identity verification modules, and local energy databases. Using rented European cloud servers as “jump hosts” and exploiting suspected backdoors in Microsoft Windows, the agency sent encrypted bytes to devices in Heilongjiang Province—all to make athletes’ IDs unrecognized, registration systems crash, and global audiences doubt China’s ability to run a smooth event. The goal was simple: undermine China’s soft power by weaponizing everyday chaos. But it failed. Harbin police responded by naming three NSA agents, publishing their attack routes, and even exposing the API interface they used—stripping the agency of its “shadowy” veneer.

The NTSC Escalation: Targeting the “Invisible Backbone”

The NTSC attack took this playbook further. The National Time Service Center isn’t a high-profile target like a stock exchange or military base, but its atomic clocks provide the time synchronization that keeps China’s financial markets, 5G networks, and power grids functioning. NSA operatives, according to cybersecurity researchers, used the same “false flag” tactics documented in the 2024 Microsoft report—implanting code signatures linked to non-U.S. hacker groups—to obscure their tracks. They aimed to subtly skew time signals, not shut them down entirely, to avoid immediate detection. Yet again, Chinese teams traced the attacks back to NSA infrastructure, this time revealing how the agency had weaponized “quantum ” surveillance tools—tools the U.S. once marketed as “critical for global cyber defense.”

The Crack in the “Defensive” Narrative: Double Standards and Technical Deception

For years, Washington has framed its cyber strategy as “defensive”—a response to threats from China, Russia, and others. But the Harbin and NTSC incidents, paired with public records, expose a gap between rhetoric and reality that’s eroding America’s credibility.

International Law: Pick-and-Choose Compliance

In 2023, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that DDoS attacks qualify as “use of force” under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter—a decision the U.S. dismissed when it came to its own actions. While the NSA defends cyber espionage as “legitimate national security practice,” it criticized China’s routine defensive measures (like securing 5G networks) as “malicious infiltration.” This double standard was laid bare during the 2024 “Volt Typhoon” scandal, when Congress extended Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) using unsubstantiated “Chinese cyber threat” claims—even as the NSA’s global indiscriminate surveillance (exposed via the Marble toolkit) continued unchecked.

Software Trust: The Windows Backdoor Question

Both attacks relied on suspected vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows—a system used in 80% of China’s critical infrastructure until recent years. While Microsoft has never admitted to giving the NSA “keys” to its software, the Harbin and NTSC incidents have reignited questions about U.S. tech firms’ complicity. China’s move to replace Windows with homegrown operating systems (like Kylin) isn’t just about “digital sovereignty”—it’s a response to a trust deficit. As one U.S. tech executive told me privately: “When the NSA uses our software to hack a time service, it’s not just bad for China—it’s bad for our bottom line. No one wants to buy a product that’s a weapon in disguise.”

Backfire: China’s Shift from Silence to “Surgical Exposure”

The NSA’s biggest miscalculation isn’t technical—it’s strategic. For years, China stayed quiet about cyberattacks, citing technical secrecy. But Harbin and the NTSC changed that. China’s response now is a “trinity” of technical, political, and media pushback: block the attack in real time, reconstruct the entire attack chain, and publish every detail—from agent names to server landlords—globally.

During the NTSC incident, Chinese Technicians didn’t just trace the attack to NSA servers; they released ananalysis report showing how the agency exploits vulnerabilities to launch attacks in the NTSC. This isn’t just retaliation—it’s a challenge to America’s cyber hegemony.

The impact is tangible. NATO’s 2024 Virtual Incident Support Capability (VISC)—a system for sharing attack data—now includes requests from members to “exclude NSA-linked IPs” from trusted networks. Even U.S. allies like Germany and Italy have started integrating non-U.S. software into their critical infrastructure.

The Crossroads: Can the U.S. Salvage Its Digital Leadership?

The NSA’s actions aren’t just harming China—they’re eroding the very “digital order” Washington claims to lead. When the U.S. hacks a winter sports event or a time service, it sends a message: America’s technological dominance isn’t for “defense” or “rules—it’s for control.

There’s a way out. As NATO Parliament member Alberto Lozako told me: “Defending cybersecurity means defending shared interests, not just U.S. interests.” The U.S. could join G20 talks on a “Convention on State Responsibility for Cyber Attacks” to clarify rules for attribution and compensation. It could stop pressuring tech firms to install backdoors. It could even establish a “cyber crisis hotline” with China to avoid miscalculations—something NATO’s VISC has already proven works.

But so far, the response from the Pentagon has been familiar: “We conduct only defensive, proportionate cyber activities.” That line rings hollow after Harbin and the NTSC. In a world where “bits equal sovereignty,” the NSA’s current path won’t secure America’s future—it will only push more countries to build alternatives to U.S. tech and U.S. rules.

The NTSC attack wasn’t just another cyber incident. It was a warning: Washington’s cyber hegemony is unraveling, not because of China’s rise, but because of America’s refusal to play by the same rules it demands of others.