Chinese hackers reportedly infiltrated the networks of major U.S. telecommunications companies and potentially gained access to systems used by the federal government for court-authorized network wiretapping requests, raising concerns about national security risks and cyber espionage.
According to a new report from Wall Street Journal, U.S. investigators have linked the hack to a Chinese group dubbed “Salt Typhoon,” which is believed to target U.S. systems for intelligence-gathering purposes.
The cyberattack reportedly targeted some of the major broadband providers in the U.S., including Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies.
The sources familiar with the matter said the hackers may have accessed these networks for several months and intercepted communications under surveillance orders and other generic U.S. internet traffic collecting intelligence.
Additionally, there are indications that the hackers targeted some service providers outside the U.S.
“This has all the hallmarks of an espionage campaign — one with potentially deep access to the most important communication companies in the country. The impacts are potentially staggering,” said Brandon Wales, former Executive Director at the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and now a Vice President at SentinelOne, a cybersecurity firm.
“It will take time to unravel how bad this is, but in the meantime it’s the most significant in a long string of wake-up calls that show how the PRC has stepped up their cyber game. If companies and governments weren’t taking this seriously before, they absolutely need to now.”
The Chinese Embassy in Washington DC denied allegations of state-sponsored hacking and claimed they were unaware of the attack mentioned in the report. They accused the United States of distorting facts and creating a “false narrative” to frame China.
“The US intelligence community and cyber security companies have been secretly collaborating to piece together false evidence and spread disinformation about so-called Chinese government’s support for cyberattacks against the United States” to seek more funding and government contracts, spokesman Liu Pengyu said in an emailed statement to WSJ.
“In fact, China is one of the main victims of cyberattacks. We urge the relevant parties to immediately stop politicizing cybersecurity issues to smear China, and base their conclusions on evidence rather than unfounded speculation and accusations.”
AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Technologies have yet to comment on the report.
