Telecommunications industry targeted: Typhoon Salt hackers hacked nine companies

Nine U.S. telecommunications companies have been hacked as of Friday as part of a China-linked hacking campaign dubbed “Salt Typhoon,” senior White House officials said Anne Newberg explain.

What happened: Earlier this month, the Biden administration said at least eight telecommunications companies were affected by hacking. However, Newberg, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, confirmed on Friday that a ninth company had now been attacked, but did not disclose the name of the company.

As part of the campaign, hackers gained access to the private communications of an unknown number of Americans, officials said. Newberg said Friday that there are a large number of affected people in the Virginia, Washington, area.

“We believe the purpose of this is to identify the owners of these phones and whether they are targets of interest to the government for subsequent espionage and intelligence gathering of communications, text messages and phone calls on these specific phones,” she said.

However, China has previously denied responsibility for the hacking attack.

Why it’s important: “We don’t leave our homes, our offices are unlocked, but our critical infrastructure — the private companies that own and operate our critical infrastructure often don’t have basic cybersecurity practices in place, which will make our foundation Facilities are riskier, more costly, and more difficult to maintain.

Neuberger said voluntary cybersecurity practices are not enough to protect against hackers from China, Russia and Iran.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a notice of public rules to ensure telecommunications companies implement basic cybersecurity practices. It is currently waiting for all commissioners to vote on the rule by Jan. 15.

“We are really eager to get bipartisan support from the FCC to ensure that telecom companies must implement basic cybersecurity practices that will make it more difficult and risky for the Chinese to breach these networks in the future,” Newberg said. , the cost is higher.

Read next:

Photo credit: Wikimedia