A White House official has confirmed that a ninth telecommunications firm has allegedly been impacted by the “Salt Typhoon” Chinese hacking group, AP News reports.
Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger didn’t explicitly identify any of the companies affected by the hacking in the press conference with reporters but said that hackers were aiming to get access to customers’ call records and their private communications.
Neuberger said hackers were targeting unnamed specific individuals, who were “primarily involved in government or political activity”. She said that due to the techniques used by the hackers, she wasn’t able to disclose how many Americans had been compromised, but said that a “large number” were in the “Washington-Virginia area.”
Though neither the government nor any of the companies have so far confirmed if they were breached, according to The Wall Street Journal, many of the largest U.S. telecommunications firms, such as AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, were impacted. Normally firms have a legal requirement to report data breaches publically, but the WSJ notes these rules don’t apply in cases to do with national security.
The Chinese hackers may have accessed network infrastructure that ISPs use to answer court-authorized wiretapping requests according to the WSJ, and they may have had access for several months.
During another press conference earlier this month, AP reported that “White House officials cautioned that the number of telecommunications firms and countries impacted could still grow.”
Many very important people may have already been targeted. In late October, The New York Times reported that Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance may have been targeted by the hackers, with staff members of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign also potentially having been earmarked.
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“We know that voluntary cybersecurity practices are inadequate to protect against China, Russia, and Iran hacking of our critical infrastructure,” said Neuberger.
The news comes after the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released an advisory earlier this month on how US telecommunications providers can bolster their cyber defenses; while the Federal Communications Commission has said it considering using legal authority to force US telecommunications to improve their defenses or face fines for noncompliance.
The Chinese government has so far denied any link to the hacking group.
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