U.S. officials said Tuesday that a Chinese-backed hacker group called Salt Typhoon continues to attack the networks of the nation's largest phone and internet providers, weeks after a long-running hacking campaign first came to light. announced that it had invaded some parts of the country.
Cybersecurity agency CISA said affected telecom companies were still working to eliminate the hackers, in part because the hackers' motives were unclear.
Rumors first surfaced in October that Salt Typhoon would be present on networks such as AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen (formerly CenturyLink). T-Mobile was targeted, but said it had largely repelled the attackers. The industry-wide hack is believed to be a possible attempt by China to carry out espionage. The hackers were found to have targeted communications of senior U.S. officials and officials, including presidential candidates, as well as accessing wiretapping systems that could potentially identify Chinese individuals under U.S. surveillance. is.
The U.S. government also provided guidance to telecom networks on how to harden them from Chinese-backed hackers, noting that remediation efforts vary by victim company.