‘Salt Typhoon:’ China-Backed Hackers Tap Into Major American Internet Providers

‘Salt Typhoon:’ China-Backed Hackers Tap Into Major American Internet Providers

While the East Coast deals from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the entire nation is now facing the consequences of a catastrophic cyber-attack from a group called “Salt Typhoon.”

Verizon and AT&T were reportedly among the affected internet service providers target by the group, which the Chinese Ministry of State Security reportedly backs.

The Wall Street Journal published an exclusive report indicating the hackers took advantage of information from U.S. federal government systems for court-authorized network wiretapping requests.

For months or longer, the hackers might have held access to network infrastructure used to cooperate with lawful U.S. requests for communications data, according to people familiar with the matter, which amounts to a major national security risk. The attackers also had access to other tranches of more generic internet traffic, they said.

Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies are among the companies whose networks were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the people said.

…Spokesmen for AT&T, Verizon and Lumen declined to comment on the Salt Typhoon campaign.

Companies are generally required to disclose material cyber intrusions to securities regulators within a short time, but in rare cases, federal authorities can grant them an exemption from doing so on national security grounds.

What types of information could the Chinese have gotten? “Salt Typhoon” had access to information that could reveal who the US government was spying on and why. Needless to say, that would be devastating to national security…mitigated only by the fact the Chinese likely would have little interest in Trump-loving grandmothers and abortion-protesting Catholics.

A U.S. security official acknowledged the significance of the breaches but noted that “it’s going to take a little bit more time to figure out” the scale of the intrusion and what information was obtained.

One apparent target is information relating to lawful federal requests for wiretaps, according to U.S. officials. “There is some indication [the lawful intercept system] was targeted,” the security official said. But the hackers’ access was broader and may have included more general internet traffic coursing through the providers’ systems, they said.

Hot Air’s David Strom says the Chinese probably took full advantage of the wide-open backdoor.

The wording here is a little vague, and I think intentionally so, about whether the Chinese had access ONLY to data that the US government was wiretapping. That seems impossible, given that the access to wiretapping abilities is not limited to splicing wires or something like that.

It is a function of software, and that software was hacked. In this case the Chinese could access whatever they chose. No doubt that didn’t include everything, since there would be no way to store and make sense of it all, but as with our own government they could target whomever they wanted using the security hole built into the system.

… To me, this sounds catastrophic for anybody targeted. The Chinese had access to anything from anybody they targeted across these networks. Think of all the sensitive data YOU send over the internet, such as financial information, and multiply that a millionfold for the companies and government.

It’s not just the finance and security information that is in jeopardy. China is notorious for its theft of intellectual property.

Chinese government theft of U.S. intellectual property remains a “significant risk”, with several high-profile cases in recent months, a security analyst has said.

Scott Tosi, an analyst at security consultancy Nisos Intelligence, told Newsweek that infiltration remains a threat in both business and universities.

Targets in recent years have included everything from artificial intelligence to car manufacture, but involve only a tiny fraction of the Chinese-born employees in the U.S. The FBI has been warning of the problem for at least a decade.

“U.S.-employed Chinese national intellectual property theft continues to be a significant risk to both the private sector and academia,” Tosi said.

If there was anything of value in terms of new technologies or discoveries, on the internet of those three provides, one must assume it is now in the hands of Chinese entrepreneurs and researchers. Catastrophic doesn’t begin to address what an absolute disaster this is.

The Chinese are denying everything while US congressional officials have been briefed on the extent of the cyber-attack.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, denied that Beijing-backed hackers had breached US telecom firms, calling that information “a distortion of the fact.” Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu accused the US of “politicizing cybersecurity issues to smear China.”

…US officials have briefed the House and Senate intelligence committees on the Chinese hacking campaign, two sources said. Cybersecurity experts from Microsoft and Google-owned firm Mandiant have been helping to investigate the hacking activity.

People probing the hacks have been struck by the hackers’ skill, persistence and ability to burrow into computer networks, the sources briefed on the matter said.

The US Government has been keen on having a “back-door” to spy on Americans.

If you spy by the back door, you get spied on by the back door.

Who will be held responsible for the policies that led to this breach and its lack of detection? Sadly, there will likely be no accountability, but plenty of congressional theatrics.

There’s constant pressure from governments to bake-in systems for access.

Failure to comply with those demands is met with big sanctions. Just look at Durov.

Yet I predict that there will be zero meaningful accountability over this breach.https://t.co/TkgEP3xvYS

— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) October 5, 2024

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