U.S. mobile giant T-Mobile said Wednesday that hackers were “unable to access” customers' calls, texts and voicemails during an ongoing industry-wide cyberattack targeting internet and phone companies.
Jeff Simon, T-Mobile's chief security officer, said in a statement that the company has detected “attempts to infiltrate our systems” in recent weeks, with sources connected to T-Mobile's network. He said it was another telecommunications company. The company's name was not mentioned.
“We immediately disconnected the provider's network because we believe that the provider's network has been and may be compromised,” Simon said.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that a Chinese-backed hacker group known as Salt Typhoon had launched a widespread espionage campaign that targeted T-Mobile's communications, along with several other major telecommunications companies, including AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen. As part of this, it was reported that T-Mobile was compromised. U.S. officials, including U.S. government officials and presidential candidates.
T-Mobile said Wednesday that it could not definitively identify the hackers, but added: “We do not have any confirmation of these or any other attackers within our systems at this time.” The company said its cybersecurity defenses prevented the attackers from “accessing sensitive customer information” and did not specifically rule out the possibility that they had compromised its systems in the past.
In response to questions from TechCrunch, a T-Mobile spokesperson said metadata about a customer's phone calls and text messages, including information about the caller, sender, recipient, and the date and time of the communication, is considered a “sensitive” customer record. It said that it was not accessed. .
“We have robust technical measures such as logs that allow us to identify threats and activity on our systems. This type of telemetry allows us to quickly identify suspicious activity and protect our systems and customers. We were able to take action,” said Michelle Jacob, a T-Mobile spokesperson.
T-Mobile said it has invested in strengthening its cybersecurity over the past few years, largely due to numerous data breaches that compromised the personal information of millions of T-Mobile customers.
U.S. cybersecurity agencies CISA and the FBI said last week that Chinese-backed hackers were targeting telecommunications companies as part of a “widespread and significant cyber espionage campaign” targeting eavesdropping systems, including U.S. phone and internet companies. announced that its installation is required by law. .
U.S. officials say Operation Salt Typhoon against telecommunications companies is part of a broader effort by China to lay the groundwork for a destructive cyberattack in the event of a future conflict with the United States, including an expected Chinese invasion of Taiwan. It is associated with.