Democrats and Republicans have come together in a rare moment of unity to condemn an espionage-driven Chinese infiltration of the US telecommunications system that has been called the worst hack in American history.
Carried out by a group called Salt Typhoon that is believed to be linked to China’s communist regime, it has resulted in the infiltration of dozens of US telecoms companies and the data of senior political figures – including the president-elect, Donald Trump; the incoming vice-president, JD Vance; and Kamala Harris, the defeated Democratic presidential candidate – being stolen.
The US intelligence community believes the hack is ongoing and constitutes a grave national security threat.
The breach – which saw the hackers penetrate the system of major US telecoms giants, including Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T and roughly 80 other companies and internet providers – has potentially given the hackers access to the texts, emails and personal details of tens of millions of people.
However, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) say the infiltration is targeted at certain high-level figures in a highly sophisticated espionage operation.
“We have identified that [Chinese government]-affiliated actors have compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies to enable the theft of customer call records data, the compromise of private communications of a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity, and the copying of certain information that was subject to US law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders,” the agencies said in a joint statement last month.
The hack was first discovered last spring but only became public in late October, less than a fortnight before the presidential election, after being reported by the New York Times, which disclosed that hackers had targeted phones used by Trump and Vance.
Officials believe the infiltration is motivated by spying and information gathering rather than a precursor to an attack on infrastructure.
About 150 targeted victims, most of them in the Washington region, have been identified by the FBI. Officials believe information procured could then be used to target others.
Mark Warner, the outgoing Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee, told the Washington Post that the infiltration was the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history – by far”, adding: “The American people need to know.
“This is an ongoing effort by China to infiltrate telecom systems around the world, to exfiltrate huge amounts of data.”
So far, however, the issue has gained little public traction, being overshadowed by last month’s election and Trump’s efforts to name members of his nascent administration following his victory.
It has elicited several meetings on Capitol Hill as Congress members and senators come to terms with yet another security breach in a year that has seen two failed assassination attempts against Trump and an apparently successful hack of his campaign by Iran, which was also engaged in a separate plot to kill him, according to security officials.
Senators from both main parties were briefed about the scale of the problem by the FBI, CISA and Federal Communications Commission officials this month in a closed-door session that triggered expressions of anger.
“The extent and depth and breadth of Chinese hacking is absolutely mind-boggling – that we would permit as much as has happened in just the last year is terrifying,” said Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator for Connecticut.
Florida senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominee to be secretary of state and a noted hawk on China, said: “It’s the most disturbing and widespread incursion into our telecommunications systems in the history of the world, not just the country, because of how massive our telecommunications systems is. This is as bad as it gets.”
His fellow Florida Republican, Rick Scott, blamed the agencies for failing to prevent the hack. “There’s no accountability in anybody sitting up there,” he told reporters. “They have not told us why they didn’t catch it, what they’ve done to prevent it.”
Josh Hawley, a GOP senator for Missouri, called the hack “breathtaking”.
“I think the American people need to know the extent of the breach here. I think they will be shocked at the extent of it,” he said. “I think they need to know about their text messages, their voicemail, their phone calls. It’s very bad, it’s very, very bad, and it is ongoing.”
While the hack has yet to capture the popular imagination, news of its scale is certain to further complicate America’s tangled relationship with China, which Trump has threatened with tariffs while also signalling a wish for warmer ties with a highly unusual invitation to its president, Xi Jinping, to attend next month’s presidential inauguration.
Brendan Carr, Trump’s nominee as head of the Federal Communications Commission, has pledged to work “with national security agencies through the transition and next year in an effort to root out the threat and secure our networks”.
“Cybersecurity is going to be an incredibly important issue,” he told the Washington Post. “National security is going to be a top priority.”
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