A group of Chinese hackers infiltrated several American telecommunications companies in search of sensitive information on topics such as national security, CNN reported citing multiple sources.
US researchers identified US broadband and internet providers AT&T, Verizon and Lumen among the targets of the recent series of cyberattacks launched against the United States.
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In particular, as the backbone of telephone and Internet communications, American telecommunications companies possess enormous volumes of caller and user data.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, denied that Beijing-backed hackers had breached American telecommunications companies, calling that information “a distortion of the fact.” Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu accused the United States of “politicizing cybersecurity issues to smear China,” CNN noted.
The matter has been addressed by the highest levels of the US administration. U.S. officials have briefed the House and Senate intelligence committees about the Chinese hacking campaign, two sources said. Cybersecurity experts from Microsoft and Google-owned company Mandiant have been helping investigate the hacking activity.
In an attempt to sway public opinion in the face of detailed accusations from the US government, China has increasingly accused the US government of carrying out cyberattacks against Chinese organizations.
According to the report, people who investigated the attacks were impressed by the hackers’ skill, persistence and ability to penetrate computer networks, sources briefed on the matter said. The Chinese hacking team in question is known in the cybersecurity industry as Salt Typhoon.
“We are tracking Salt Typhoon and have seen activity consistent with public news reports,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNN. “When we see nation-state activity, we provide customers with information to investigate as appropriate.”
Hacking and information operations are a common point of contention in bilateral meetings between the United States and China. Chinese President Xi Jinping told US President Joe Biden that China would not interfere in the 2024 presidential election during their meeting in California last year, CNN reported.
The rise in such attacks comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing over cyberespionage and other high-risk national security issues.
Earlier, FBI Director Christopher Wray also weighed in, saying Chinese hackers were threatening critical infrastructure in the United States and abroad.
Several leading think tanks, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, have time and again raised the issue of the damage caused by such cyber attacks that eventually threaten global digital public infrastructure and other key assets in various areas.
(Only the title and image of this report may have been modified by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First published: October 6, 2024 | 20:17 IS
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