Chinese hackers gain access to US telecommunications companies, worrying national security officials

CNN-

A highly skilled group of hackers linked to the Chinese government has infiltrated several U.S. telecommunications companies in recent months in a likely bid to obtain sensitive national security information, multiple sources briefed on the matter told CNN.

U.S. investigators believe the hackers potentially gained access to the wiretap warrant requests, two of the sources said, but officials are still working to determine what information the hackers may have obtained. US broadband and internet providers AT&T, Verizon and Lumen are among the targets, the sources said.

U.S. officials are concerned about the potential national security damage caused by the hack, which they only recently discovered. It's the latest sophisticated hack targeting U.S. federal agencies that investigators have linked to China, and it comes amid tensions between Washington and Beijing over cyberespionage and other high-stakes national security issues.

As the backbone of Internet and telephone communications, U.S. telecommunications companies hold enormous volumes of caller and user data. U.S. law enforcement requests access, through a warrant, to specific portions of this data for criminal and national security investigations.

Some of these investigations would be of great interest to Beijing. In recent years, the U.S. government has filed charges against Chinese government agents for allegedly harassing Chinese nationals on U.S. soil and hacking political dissidents and U.S. businesses.

AT&T and Lumen declined to comment. Verizon did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., has denied that Beijing-backed hackers hacked into U.S. telecommunications companies, calling the report a distortion of facts. Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu accused the United States of politicizing cybersecurity issues to smear China.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the hacking activity.

U.S. officials have briefed the House and Senate intelligence committees on China's hacking campaign, two sources said. Cybersecurity experts from Microsoft and Google-owned Mandiant helped investigate the hacking activity.

People investigating the hacks were struck by the hackers' skill, persistence and ability to infiltrate computer networks, the people briefed on the matter said. The Chinese hacker team in question is known in the cybersecurity industry as Salt Typhoon.

Still, the Chinese government has a range of other hacking teams that can carry out espionage or disrupt computer networks, according to U.S. officials and private experts. FBI Director Christopher Wray said Chinese government-backed hackers outnumber FBI cybercriminals 50 to one.

Another Chinese government-backed hacker group is hiding in U.S. transportation and communications networks, waiting to use that access to disrupt any U.S. response to a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, U.S. officials say.

Another Chinese group broke into the unclassified email accounts of top US diplomats last year, on the eve of a high-profile visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China, CNN reported.

Seeking to sway public opinion in the face of detailed allegations from the U.S. government, China has increasingly accused the U.S. government of carrying out cyberattacks against Chinese organizations.

Hacking and information operations are regularly a subject of contention during bilateral meetings. Chinese leader Xi Jinping told US President Joe Biden that China would not interfere in the 2024 presidential election when the two met in California last year, CNN previously reported.

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