On December 28, two major telecommunications companies in the United States, AT&T and Verizon, admitted for the first time that their systems were once attacked by a Chinese Communist hacker group called “Salt Typhoon.” However, both companies stated that they are currently working in cooperation with law enforcement agencies and government officials in the United States to ensure the security of wireless communication networks.
A spokesperson for AT&T stated, “We have not detected any activities related to hackers from other governments on our network.”
Regarding the cyber attacks they faced, the spokesperson mentioned, “Based on our investigation of this attack, the People’s Republic of China’s targets are a small subset of individuals that foreign intelligence agencies are interested in.”
Despite only finding a few instances of information leakage, the spokesperson emphasized that AT&T is actively monitoring and repairing its network to protect customer data, and will continue to collaborate with authorities to assess and mitigate threats.
Verizon’s Chief Legal Officer mentioned in a statement, “We have not detected any malicious network activities on Verizon’s network for some time, and after extensive work in handling this event, it can be said that Verizon has contained activities related to this specific incident.”
Last Friday, an unnamed ninth telecommunications company was added to the list of entities attacked by “Salt Typhoon,” according to U.S. officials. They stated that Chinese hackers gained extensive and comprehensive access to the attacked networks, enabling them to “locate and arbitrarily record millions of individuals.”
Regarding the cyber attacks on U.S. telecommunications companies by Chinese hackers, Chinese officials denied these claims and asserted that Beijing “resolutely opposes and combats all forms of cyber attacks and cyber theft.”
Previously, the U.S. government accused hackers of targeting Verizon, AT&T, Lumen, and other telecommunications companies, stealing phone audio data, intercepting data, and collecting a large number of call logs.
Following these incidents, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency urged top government officials and politicians on December 18 to switch mobile communications to end-to-end encrypted applications.
It was reported that the targets of “Salt Typhoon” included officials associated with the presidential campaign teams of Vice President Harris from the Democratic Party and former President Trump from the Republican Party.
(Reference: Reuters)