China’s pursuit of US tech ‘scary’ & ‘keeps me up at night,’ NSA’s George Barnes warns Billington cybersecurity summit

A NATIONAL Security Agency director has issued a chilling warning about China's pursuit of US tech, calling their efforts "scary" and saying it "keeps me up at night".

The warning came from NSA Deputy Director George Barnes on Wednesday during the first day of the annual Billington Cybersecurity Summit in the Washington Convention Center in Seattle.

In his speech, Barnes said that the future US government's cyber workforce "could be in trouble," saying "we have a dearth of talent in the US."

Barnes claims that if China, Russia, and other foes "can't buy it" US tech, "they try to acquire it".

"China is pursuing the highest technology they can get a hold of. The scale of their pursuit is scary, is daunting," he warned.

Barnes said the thing that "kept him up at night" was the "lack of preparedness and failures in basic cyber hygiene".

"Unfortunately, all the basics have not been followed. We have to work with the private sector to establish the standards," he said.

China, the US and Russia are regarded as global leaders in cyberwarfare research.

The warning comes as both nations continue to rampant online spying against each other.

The US cybersecurity community previously warned that China is laying the groundwork for cyberattacks in America as tension continues to rise over Taiwan.

In February, the Justice Department ended a controversial program launched under the Trump administration to hunt down Chinese spies.

The "China Initiative" was designed to tackle a top national security priority: "identifying and prosecuting those responsible for China's widespread theft of hundreds of billions of dollars a year in American trade secrets and intellectual property."