Information related to a Chinese group’s recent hacking campaign on US telecommunications continues to emerge. Recently, US officials added a 9th company to the list of those compromised by the attack. However, a new report from The Wall Street Journal claims that the Salt Typhoon hack compromised even more firms than we knew before.
Salt Typhoon hack of US telecoms reportedly affected more firms than previously known
According to previous reports, Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen were among the carriers most affected by the incident. T-Mobile reportedly suffered an attempted attack, but they managed to stop it before it was successful. Now, The Wall Street Journal claims that network equipment from Charter Communications, Consolidated Communications and Windstream was also breached.
Unpatched network devices from Fortinet were exploited during the attacks. large network routers from Cisco also were reportedly compromised. Recently, Verizon and AT&T publicly addressed the issue, saying that thanks to their work with authorities, suspicious activity on their networks had stopped. Lumen said the same, adding that the hackers were unable to access any of its customers’ data.
China’s technological capabilities for remote attacks continue to grow
China’s apparently growing technological capabilities for such attacks are a major concern for the United States. Beijing officials have flatly denied having any links to the attackers. However, the FBI claims that the Salt Typhoon group managed to hack so many American firms thanks to Chinese support.
Jake Sullivan, a national security adviser, reportedly warned in 2023 about China’s advances in the segment. Sullivan had a secret meeting with telecoms and tech executives at the White House. During the meeting, he said that China had gained the ability to even “shut down dozens of U.S. ports, power grids and other infrastructure targets at will,” Reuters says.
The FBI has not yet been able to guarantee when US telecommunications will be completely secure. In December last year, a US official recommended that everyone should use encrypted calls and messages whenever possible.
