18 December 2024

At least 8 US telcos, dozens of countries impacted by Salt Typhoon breaches, White House says

Jonathan Greig & Martin Matishak

The scope of the Chinese government hacking campaign came into further focus on Wednesday, as senior White House officials revealed that eight telecommunications giants in the U.S. were breached and that companies in multiple other countries were also hacked.

The breaches are part of the Salt Typhoon campaign, which first came to light after threat actors intercepted the correspondence of senior officials within both presidential campaigns, including from President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance.

Anne Neuberger, the U.S. deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, reiterated to reporters on Wednesday that Chinese actors are still inside the breached systems.

Neuberger said President Joe Biden has been briefed on the incident several times, and the White House has created a Unified Coordination Group that meets daily to discuss the issue.

The campaign “has been underway … likely one to two years” and has compromised telecoms in the Indo-Pacific region, Europe and elsewhere.

“Our understanding is that a couple dozens of countries were impacted,” she said. “We believe this is intended as a Chinese espionage program focused, again, on key government officials, key corporate IP, so that will determine which telecoms were often targeted, and how many were compromised as well.”

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