Telecom Industry Targeted: Salt Typhoon Hackers Breach Nine Companies

Nine U.S. telecom firms have been hacked as part of a Chinese-linked hacking campaign dubbed Salt Typhoon as of Friday, top White House official Anne Neuberger said.

What Happened: Earlier this month, the Biden administration said that at least eight telecommunication companies have been affected by the hacking campaign. However, a ninth company has now been attacked, Neuberger, the U.S. deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, confirmed on Friday without revealing the name of the company.

As per officials, the hackers gained access to the private communication of an unknown number of Americans as part of the campaign. A large number of affected individuals are in the Washington Virginia area, Neuberger said on Friday.

“We believe it was the goal of identifying who those phones belong to and if they were government targets of interest for follow-on espionage and intelligence collection of communications, of texts, and phone calls on those particular phones,” she said.

China, however, has previously denied responsibility for the hacking.

Why It Matters: “We wouldn't leave our homes, our offices unlocked, and yet our critical infrastructure — the private companies owning and operating our critical infrastructure often do not have the basic cybersecurity practices in place that would make our infrastructure riskier, costlier, and harder for countries and criminals to attack,” Neuberger said, while calling for defensible infrastructure.

Voluntary cybersecurity practices, Neuberger said, are inadequate to protect against China Russia, and Iran’s hacking efforts.

The FCC has launched a notice of a public rule to ensure telecom companies are putting into place basic cybersecurity practices. It is now waiting for all commissioners to vote on the rule by Jan. 15.

“We really are eager to have the bipartisan support across the FCC to ensure that telecom companies must put in place those basic cybersecurity practices that would make it harder, riskier, and costlier for the Chinese to compromise those networks in the future,” Neuberger said on Friday.

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