Additional American corporations have been added to the list of telecommunications corporations that were attacked consequently of a wave of hacks committed by the Chinese state-backed cybercriminal group tracked as Salt Typhoon.
This got here after AT&T, Verizon and Lumen confirmed on December 30 that that they had evicted hackers from their networks. After breaking into their networks, Salt Typhoon hackers gained access to text messages, voicemails and phone calls of chosen people, in addition to information from wiretaps of individuals under investigation by US law enforcement agencies.
In November, T-Mobile also revealed that unknown attackers had compromised a few of its routers while attempting to do network reconnaissance after connecting to the network of a connected wired service provider. However, the corporate’s chief security officer, Jeff Simon, didn’t link the hack to Salt Typhoon and said the carrier’s cyber defenses stopped the attack.
Over the weekend, sources aware of the matter told the web site Wall Street Journal that Chinese hackers also breached the systems of Charter Communications, Consolidated Communications and Windstream.
Asked for confirmation, a Windstream spokesperson told BleepingComputer that the corporate had “nothing to share.” Charter and Consolidated Communications didn’t reply to requests for comment when contacted by BleepingComputer earlier today.
Although Anne Neuberger, White House deputy national security adviser for cybersecurity and emerging technologies, told reporters on December 27 that Chinese hackers had breached nine U.S. telecommunications corporations, it isn’t known whether these three carriers are amongst them or not. also added to the list. Neuberger also said at a press conference in early December that Salt Typhoon had hacked telecommunications corporations in dozens of other countries.
Following the wave of telecommunications breaches which have hit many countries, CISA has advised senior government officials to change to end-to-end message encryption applications corresponding to Signal to scale back the chance of communications being intercepted. Additionally, the cybersecurity agency has published guidance to assist administrators and telecommunications engineers harden their systems against Salt Typhoon attacks.
US Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon also announced recent laws aimed toward securing US telecommunications infrastructure, while FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel he said the agency would take “urgent” motion to be certain that U.S. carriers are required to secure their networks against cyberattacks.
In response to those telecommunications attacks, the U.S. government is reportedly planning to ban China Telecom’s last energetic operations within the United States. Additionally, U.S. authorities are considering banning TP-Link routers if ongoing investigations show that their use in cyberattacks poses a risk to national security.
The Treasury Department also last week linked China-sponsored hackers to a recent breach of the agency’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which administers trade and economic sanctions programs, in what it described as a “major cybersecurity incident.”
