US investigates potential national security risks posed by internet routers used by millions

CNN-

U.S. authorities are investigating potential national security risks linked to a China-founded telecommunications company whose Internet routers are used by millions of people, several sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

U.S. officials fear that cheap and ubiquitous routers made by TP-Link could allow China-backed hackers to gain a foothold in U.S. infrastructure, the sources said.

The Commerce Ministry has opened an investigation into the company, which is in its infancy. One possible outcome of the investigation is a ban on the sale of TP-Link routers in the United States, two of the sources said.

It's just one of several steps the Biden administration has taken in its final days that officials say are aimed at weakening China's ability to hack the U.S. telecommunications sector. These actions will reverberate through the Trump administration, which will inherit the daunting challenge of trying to counter China's aggressive use of cyber operations to gather intelligence.

The Commerce Department also sent preliminary findings last week in a separate investigation into another company, the U.S. subsidiary of state-owned telecommunications giant China Telecom, linked to national security risks that it said American officials, arise from the use of its equipment. by American telecommunications companies, two sources said. This is the first step in a possible purge of any remaining China Telecom equipment with U.S. carriers.

All this comes as major U.S. telecommunications carriers continue to work to expel Chinese hackers from their networks as part of a cyberespionage campaign targeting senior U.S. political figures, including President-elect Donald Trump.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the Commerce Department's investigation into TP-Link.

Founded in China in 1996, TP-Link has become a dominant player in the global wireless Internet router market. Its exact market share in the United States is unclear (a TP-Link spokesperson did not respond to a question about market share), but the gears' widespread use in the United States is one of the reasons for the investigation.

TP-Link announced a restructuring of the company this year, establishing a headquarters in California, TP-Link Systems, which it said is separate from its operations in China.

As a U.S.-based company, TP-Link Systems Inc.'s security practices are fully compliant with industry security standards in the United States, a TP-Link Systems spokesperson told CNN .

We are pleased to have the opportunity to engage with the federal government to demonstrate that our security practices are fully compliant with industry security standards and to demonstrate our continued commitment to the U.S. market, American consumers, and response risks to U.S. national security, the statement said.

The company has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

China has a range of hacker groups capable of exploiting Internet and phone service providers to extract sensitive user information, according to private experts and U.S. officials. The hackers not only exploited TP-Link routers but those made by American suppliers like Cisco.

The Chinese government consistently denies US allegations of cyberattacks.

We urge the United States to stop expanding the concept of national security and stop abusing national power to suppress Chinese businesses, said Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC. in an email.

A spokesperson for the Commerce Ministry declined to comment.

A massive hacking campaign targeting the phone calls of Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and senior Biden administration officials, which became public this fall, has given urgency to the Commerce Department's investigation into the equipment Chinese telecommunications company.

US officials believe Chinese hackers have breached at least eight US telecommunications providers in their quest to spy on senior US politicians as part of a hacking campaign that has affected dozens of countries around the world, a a senior White House official said this month.

More than a year ago, hackers were able to penetrate deep into the networks of some U.S. telecommunications providers and, in some cases, listen to calls and read text messages from certain targets.

While there is no evidence that TP-Link equipment was exploited in these hacks, U.S. officials are working to take a much broader look at vulnerabilities in America's telecommunications infrastructure. continuation of the espionage campaign.

American telecom operators should never have found themselves in this situation where their networks were so completely compromised by Chinese hackers, Brendan Carr, Trump's pick to head the Federal Communications Commission, told CNN.

Amid this fallout, the FCC has proposed strengthening cybersecurity regulations for telecommunications carriers, while a Senate bill from Sen. Ron Wyden would go further by requiring independent security audits for carriers . Privately, telecom executives admit that new security requirements are inevitable because of the hacking, which was carried out by a suspected Chinese group known as Salt Typhoon.

It was only a matter of time before foreign hackers penetrated deep into U.S. communications systems, Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who sits on the Intelligence Committee, told CNN.

The spy operation tracked Trump's transition team, which constantly changed the phones used by senior staff in an attempt to keep the Chinese guessing, CNN previously reported. There are more in-person meetings at Trump's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida rather than phone calls, in part because of concerns about China's relentless surveillance.

US intelligence agencies have previously exploited telecommunications networks to spy on China, according to documents leaked by former US contractor Edward Snowden. But recent telecommunications espionage has also added strain to cyber relations between the United States and China, which are rarely calm. In conversations with their Chinese counterparts, U.S. diplomats have complained that the scope and scale of the Salt Typhoon hacks are excessive, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

In some cases, the lack of strong security measures at some telecom operators and equipment makers likely exacerbated the damage caused by the alleged Chinese hacking campaign and prevented the hackers from being discovered sooner, two officials said Americans. The sources did not name specific companies. The White House's blame for the breach on telecommunications carriers has angered some telecom executives, who say they have invested heavily in defense and found themselves up against a group of highly capable hackers.

Given their skills and resources, the suspected Chinese hackers may have managed to break into telecom operators and their software providers regardless of the defenses in place, sources told CNN.

But U.S. officials and telecom executives struggled to anticipate how China's alleged spies would study and exploit the entire telecommunications system, its interconnections and the software and hardware it relies on.

The status quo must change, according to Wyden.

“It's a fork in the road and either you stay with a broken system that is essentially voluntary, or you say you're going to fix this and you're going to take mandatory action,” Wyden told CNN.

Wydens' bill would require top executives of carriers to submit signed statements attesting that they are complying with the FCC's cybersecurity rules.

Telecommunications providers have long had to balance their users' privacy with their ability to scour their networks for criminal and state-backed hackers, said Marcus Sachs, former vice president of policy at national security at Verizon.

Large telecom operators are generally good at quickly detecting and repairing attempted intrusions into their networks, he said.

The worst case is when the items are unknown for months or years and the intruders were sitting inside, monitoring and collecting them and you had no idea they were there, Sachs said.

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