The U.S. government’s ongoing probe into China-backed actors’ attempts to hack into U.S. telecommunications infrastructure revealed a “broad and significant” espionage campaign targeted at those in government or political work, the FBI announced Wednesday.
The FBI, in a joint statement with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said the hackers were able to disrupt multiple telecommunication companies to take customer call records data while compromising the private communications of some “who are primarily involved in government or political activity.”
The FBI did not specify the names of any individuals who were targeted in the alleged hack.
The campaign also allegedly tried to copy “certain information that was subject to U.S. law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders,” in a possible bid to compromise programs under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which lays out the U.S. procedures for surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington pushed back on the FBI’s findings, calling them “smear attacks against China without any factual basis.”
“In recent years, the US has compiled and spread all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats. China firmly opposes this. China’s position is consistent and clear. China firmly opposes and combats cyber attacks and cyber theft in all forms,” spokesperson Liu Pengyu wrote in a statement.
“Cyberspace is characterized by strong virtuality, difficulty in tracing origins, and diverse actors, making the tracing of cyber attacks a complex technical issue,” he added. “We hope that relevant parties will adopt a professional and responsible attitude when characterizing cyber incidents, basing their conclusions on sufficient evidence rather than unfounded speculation and accusations.”
The update comes just weeks after the bureau first announced an investigation into the “unauthorized access” to telecommunications by actors affiliated with China. Shortly after the announcement, reports flurried that President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance’s phones were targeted and possibly compromised, though the government did not confirm this.
Other political workers were also reportedly targeted, including some Democrats on Capitol Hill and potentially staff members of Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign, just weeks ahead of election day.
Concerns were repeatedly raised in the months leading up to the election over China and other nations’ possible efforts to meddle with the 2024 race up and down the ballot.
A Microsoft Threat Analysis report, released less than two weeks from the election, revealed Chinese influence operations targeted a handful of Republican candidates and congressional members who “advocate for anti-Chinese policies.”
This included Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has since been nominated to serve in Trump’s cabinet as the secretary of State.
While disinformation campaigns have occurred on some level for years, advancements in technology — notably artificial intelligence (AI) — make it easier for fake content to quickly spread online.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have repeatedly sounded the alarm on these threats, with some publicly calling on major tech companies to crack down on disinformation, which often spreads on their social media platforms with the help of AI.
