A ninth US telecom firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and telephone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said on Friday.
Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden this month said that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon.
US Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger on Friday told reporters that a ninth victim had been identified after the administration released guidance to companies about how to hunt for Chinese culprits in their networks.
Photo: AP
The update from Neuberger is the latest development in a massive hacking operation that has alarmed national security officials, exposed cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the private sector and laid bare China’s hacking sophistication.
“The reality is that China is targeting critical infrastructure in the United States. Those are private sector companies, and we still see companies not doing the basics,” she said.
“That’s why we’re looking forward and saying, ‘Let’s lock down this infrastructure,’” she added. “And frankly, let’s hold the Chinese accountable for this.”
The hackers compromised the networks of telecoms to obtain customer call records and gain access to the private communications of what officials have said is a limited number of individuals. Although the FBI has not publicly identified any of the victims, officials believe senior US government officials and prominent political figures are among those whose communications were accessed.
Neuberger said that officials did not yet have a precise sense how many Americans overall were affected by Salt Typhoon, in part because the Chinese were careful about their techniques, but that a “large number” were in the Washington-Virginia area.
Officials believe the goal of the hackers was to identify who owned the phones and, if they were “government targets of interest,” spy on their texts and phone calls, she said.
The FBI said most of the people targeted by the hackers are “primarily involved in government or political activity.”
The episode highlighted the need for required cybersecurity practices in the telecommunications industry, something the US Federal Communications Commission is to take up at a meeting next month, Neuberger said.
One of the nine telecoms breached involved an administrator account that had access to more than 100,000 routers, she said.
“So when the Chinese compromised that account, they gained that kind of broad access across the network. That’s not meaningful cybersecurity to defend against the nation-state actors,” she added.
The US Department of Commerce this month moved ahead with a ban of China Telecom and Neuberger said that similar actions would be released in the next month, without giving details.
“We know that voluntary cybersecurity practices are inadequate to protect against China, Russia and Iran hacking of our critical infrastructure,” she said.
The Chinese government has denied responsibility for the hacking.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
PINEAPPLE DEBATE: While the owners of the pizzeria dislike pineapple on pizza, a survey last year showed that over 50% of Britons either love or like the topping A trendy pizzeria in the English city of Norwich has declared war on pineapples, charging an eye-watering ￡100 (US$124) for a Hawaiian in a bid to put customers off the disputed topping. Lupa Pizza recently added pizza topped with ham and pineapple to its account on a food delivery app, writing in the description: “Yeah, for ￡100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on, you monster!” “[We] vehemently dislike pineapple on pizza,” Lupa co-owner Francis Wolf said. “We feel like it doesn’t suit pizza at all,” he said. The other co-owner, head chef Quin Jianoran, said they kept tinned pineapple
RSS