US adds 9th telecom to list of companies hacked by China-backed Salt Typhoon cyber espionage Reuters
Author: AJ Vicens
(Reuters) – U.S. officials have added a ninth telecommunications company to the list of entities compromised by a sweeping China-linked cyberespionage operation known as Salt Typhoon, a senior White House official said on Friday.
Anne Neuberger, the US deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, told reporters on a call that the unnamed telecom was added to the list after the US government shared guidance on how to detect and defend against the operation. Officials previously said the attackers targeted Verizon (NYSE: ), AT&T (NYSE: ), Lumen and others.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on December 18 urged senior government and political figures to switch mobile communications to end-to-end encrypted applications as a result of the Salt Typhoon campaign, which targeted officials associated with the campaign of former Democratic presidential candidate Kamal Harris and the newly elected President Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance, according to reports.
Officials said that as part of the campaign, “a large amount of Americans’ metadata was taken.”
Chinese officials have previously described the allegations as disinformation and said Beijing “firmly opposes and fights against cyber-attacks and cyber-theft in all forms”.
Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico, called Salt Typhoon “the largest telecommunications hack in our nation’s history” during a Dec. 11 hearing, while Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said the US “must close all vulnerabilities in communications networks.”
Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Dec. 5 that her agency is proposing rules requiring telecommunications carriers to secure their networks in light of the Salt Typhoon revelations.
Neuberger said Friday that “the Chinese gained access to the networks and essentially had broad and complete access,” giving them the ability to “geo-locate millions of individuals, record phone calls at will,” and updated FCC (BME:) rules could help limit the scope and impact of future intrusions.
