A new report cites insider sources in naming Charter Communications, Consolidated Communications and Windstream among the breached US telecom companies. The sources also state that the Salt Typhoon campaign may have started in late 2023.
A recent confirmed T-Mobile hack has been attributed to Salt Typhoon, the Chinese cyber espionage team that also breached Verizon and AT&T earlier in the year. That means the hackers were able to penetrate all three of the country's major mobile carriers in 2024.
Chinese hackers have attempted to interfere in US elections before. Anonymous official sources have spoken out claiming that this year's free-ranging espionage campaign is seeking phone data from senior officials and leading candidates regardless of party affiliation.
Chinese hackers may have had illicit access to a federal surveillance system for months before being discovered and rousted. The access was apparently gained by compromising US telecoms Verizon and AT&T.
The Chinese hackers, a state-backed team referred to as "Salt Typhoon," were spotted stealing data from ISPs and planting backdoors and other capabilities meant for use in future cyber attacks.
Officials from the United States and United Kingdom have issued another formal warning about the perceived Chinese cyber threat to international stability and social norms, calling the issue an "epoch-defining challenge" even as Beijing continues to deny that anything at all is happening.
The CSRB found that the security breach was preventable, and that a "a corporate culture that deprioritized enterprise security investments and rigorous risk management" ended up leaving open doors for the Chinese hackers.
Private Chinese hackers were employed not just for foreign hacking, but also as a part of the government's domestic surveillance program. The document leak indicates that i-Soon may have also hacked domestic targets for the purpose of intelligence-gathering.
According to a new joint warning published by the CISA, NSA and FBI, exploits by the Chinese hackers have been going on for at least five years in some victim critical infrastructure environments.
A grave warning from FBI director Christopher Wray: Chinese hackers can be expected to continue to infiltrate critical infrastructure, and similar activity is likely proceeding successfully.
