US telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon have been targeted by a hacking attack as part of the Salt Typhoon cyberespionage operation, which is linked to the Chinese authorities.
US telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon have been targeted by a hacking attack as part of the Salt Typhoon cyberespionage operation, which is linked to the Chinese authorities.
According to Reuters, the networks of these two operators are currently protected, and the companies themselves are working closely with law enforcement agencies and other government services,
«Based on our ongoing investigation into this attack, the People’s Republic of China targeted a small number of individuals of foreign intelligence interest,» an AT&T spokesperson said in a statement.
A company spokesperson said that despite the identified data breaches, AT&T has restored the secure operation of its network to protect customer data.
«After significant work, we can report that Verizon was able to contain the activity related to this specific incident,» Verizon’s general counsel said in a statement.
In total, according to the publication, nine US telecommunications companies have become targets of the Salt Typhoon hackers. The individuals involved in the operation gained access to the operators' networks, which gave them the opportunity to «geolocate millions of people and record phone calls at will.»
In turn, Chinese officials have previously called these allegations disinformation and stated that Beijing «resolutely opposes and combats cyberattacks and cybertheft in all forms.»
US officials previously claimed that Chinese hackers attacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen, conducting telephone audio intercepts and stealing large amounts of call recording data.
In response to a previous cyberattack, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency urged senior government officials and politicians to switch mobile communications to end-to-end encryption applications.
It was reported that before the election, the targets of the Salt Typhoon hackers were officials associated with the presidential campaigns of Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
Senator Ben Ray Lujan, a Democrat from New Mexico, called Salt Typhoon «the largest telecommunications hack in the history of the country» during a December 11 hearing, and Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, said the US «must close any vulnerabilities in communications networks.»
The hacker group, operating under Operation Salt Typhoon, has been active since 2020 in cyber espionage campaigns against targets in North America and the Southeast. The group is engaged in large-scale theft of telecom network data and analysts have linked it to China’s Ministry of State Security.
Previously, dev.ua wrote that China is «tightening the screws» by restricting the sale of components to the US and Europe. This may have consequences for Ukrainian drone manufacturers.
