The investigation into the Chinese hacking campaign of the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure continues to yield revelations. The FBI has so far revealed that the incident affected up to eight mobile carriers. However, the latest findings led US officials to add a 9th telecom to the hacked list.
US adds 9th telecom to list of hacked by Salt Typhoon group
US authorities have not revealed the full list of affected mobile carriers. In fact, the name of the allegedly hacked 9th telecom is also secret. However, earlier reports revealed that Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen are part of the list. Although some media outlets have involved T-Mobile in the past, the company has denied this. Plus, later reports even claimed that T-Mobile managed to stop the attack on its network equipment before it succeeded.
Anne Neuberger, U.S. deputy national security adviser, was the one who told reporters that the list of breached telecoms has grown to nine. Authorities received the notice after sharing with mobile carriers a guide on what steps to take against hack campaigns.
Hackers reportedly got call and SMS metadata of millions of Americans
US officials recently said they had no timetable for the complete ouster of the attackers. The alleged perpetrators, the Salt Typhoon group, have been carrying out the hacking campaign for months. The attacks targeted high-ranking officials and presidential candidates in the United States. The group attempted to obtain classified information from the campaign teams of Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and JD Vance, according to reports.
While they didn’t get exactly what they were after, authorities say attackers accessed “a large number of Americans’ metadata.” If you’re not aware, SMS and call metadata includes information that can be used to build a tracking map for a particular person. Salt Typhoon reportedly accessed the metadata of many people in Washington. In fact, there would be around a million Verizon and AT&T customers affected. Speaking of which, a recent report stated that most of them have not received proper notice.
The government has warned US citizens; more measures under study
Amid the situation, a US security official advised Americans to turn to encrypted telecommunications services whenever possible. To try to avoid similar incidents in the future, the FCC proposed a new rule that contemplates sanctions for carriers that do not implement adequate barriers against hack campaigns like those of Salt Typhoon. The US is even considering banning China Telecom operations in the country.
Meanwhile, representatives of China continue to deny that it has anything to do with the hacking campaign. They claim that the country “firmly opposes and combats cyber attacks and cyber theft in all forms.”
