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At least eight U.S. telecom firms have been compromised by a Chinese hacking campaign, a White House official said on Wednesday.
The hack, which also affected dozens of other countries, is part of the ongoing and sprawling “Salt Typhoon” campaign – a cyber campaign that the U.S. believes is aimed at gaining access to prominent political figures and government officials’ communications.
“The Chinese compromised private companies exploiting vulnerabilities in their systems as part of a global Chinese campaign that’s affected dozens of countries around the world,” Anne Neuberger, deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technoloy, said.
Neuberger added that officials do not believe any classified communications have been compromised thus far.
The hacking campaign is one of the largest intelligence compromises in recent U.S. history. Cyberdefense and intelligence officials have already issued guidance recommending companies increase their security measures.
So far, officials have not been able to remove the Chinese government hackers from telecommunications companies.
China has denied the allegations, according to CNN.
U.S. officials have not publicly named companies impacted by the hack campaign but one official told NBC News that AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies have been hacked.
One official said the hackers stole metadata information from people’s cellphones. That information can show when, where and with who a person communicates.
It is unclear how many people’s phones have had their metadata stolen but officials indicated it was a large group of people – though not every cellphone in the U.S.
Senator Mark Warner, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Thursday that the hacking campaign had reached the deepest parts of the U.S. telecommunications system which could allow hackers to listen to telephone conversation or read text messages.
“This is a deeply concerning development for our national security,” Warner wrote on X.
FBI officials have recommended people looking to protect their phone communications should use end-to-end encrypted systems like WhatsApp or Signal to text or call. They also recommended implementing multi-factor authentication for social media, email and more.
