China has accused the U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of conducting cyberattacks against China and orchestrating “peaceful evolution” and “color revolutions” across the globe using advanced technology.

The CIA established an “empire of hackers” under U.S. supervision, claimed to a report jointly published by China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Centre (CVERC) and cybersecurity company 360 on Thursday.

“These cyberweapons have undergone strict, standardized, and professional software engineering management, which is uniquely followed by the CIA in developing cyberattack weapons,” said the report.

Investigators were allegedly able to capture and extract a sizable number of Trojan programs, functional plug-ins, and attack platform samples that were allegedly linked to the US intelligence agency, per the report.

The study alleged that the CIA has almost complete global control over the Internet and the Internet of Things (IoT).

“They have now covered almost all internet and IoT (Internet of Things) assets globally, allowing control over foreign networks and theft of important, sensitive data at any time,” claimed the report.

“Targets of these attacks include critical information infrastructure, aerospace, research institutions, oil and petrochemical industries, large internet companies, and government agencies in various countries. These attacks can be traced back to 2011 and have continued until now.”

A tit-for-tat report on cyberwarfare?

According to the Chinese report, the CIA also gathered data from foreign governments, businesses, and individuals and gave it to US decision-makers for security risk assessments and national security intelligence.

The study also asserted that the CIA carried out and oversaw covert cross-border operations at the president of the United States’ request, said a South China Morning Post (SCMP) article on Friday.

In addition, the Thursday report charged the CIA with trying to topple more than 50 legitimate governments abroad, which had a negative impact on those nations.

To stir up trouble in other nations, the CIA is also accused of providing a variety of information and communication technologies as well as on-site command assistance, claimed SCMP article citing the report.

Earlier in 2021, the US and its allies charged China with funding cyberattacks against other nations.

The action was taken months after Microsoft made comparable accusations following the hacking of its Exchange servers in March of that same year.

This was the first in a series of coordinated actions being taken in 2021 by nations to confront China and its encouragement of cyberespionage, Interesting Engineering reported.