Ninth US telecom firm breached in Chinese hack: US

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Posted on 12/28/2024 8:11:01 PM PST by lasereye

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.

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 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, 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.”

(Excerpt) Read more at taipeitimes.com ...

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The Chinese could blackmail people if they learned something damaging. Hopefully nobody in the incoming Trump admin was hacked.

1 posted on 12/28/2024 8:11:01 PM PST by lasereye

To: lasereye

2 posted on 12/28/2024 8:15:04 PM PST by Ex gun maker. (Free thinking is now a radical concept, I will not be assimilated by PC or EV group-think!)

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