Communist China hacked several major American telecommunications companies as part of an espionage campaign targeting former President Donald Trump, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), and others.
Microsoft cybersecurity experts dubbed the group connected to the Chinese government “Salt Typhoon” with “Typhoon” denoting that the operation is Chinese and “Salt” indicating that it is a counterintelligence operation.
The Biden-Harris administration was caught flat-footed by the breach and the Cyber Safety Review Board, which is part of Homeland Security, indicated that it will initiate a review of the hack “at the appropriate time.”
The hack also reportedly targeted aides of Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Some of the companies hacked included Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen, the reports said. Officials indicated that the known scale of the attack has grown dramatically as investigators continue to learn more.
The hackers are believed to have “compromised the phones of a number of prominent individuals in politics and national security, including some in the U.S. government,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
One of the concerns that officials had about the Chinese discovering who U.S. officials were calling was that it would give them a list of people to target in influence operations aimed at manipulating decision makers.
The New York Times reported that the Chinese are believed to have hacked systems used by the companies to comply with court-authorized surveillance wiretaps, including Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act collection, one of the secretive measures the U.S. has to discover terrorists and spies.
The Journal reported earlier this month that the scale of China’s espionage is “unprecedented” as it looks to become the world’s leading superpower by stealing technology.
Chinese hackers outnumber all of the FBI’s cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1, the report said. They are estimated to have up to 600,000 people involved in their espionage operations.
“China’s hacking program is larger than that of every other major nation, combined,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
