Chinese hackers have infiltrated American Internet service providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretaps. Voice of America reports this* with reference to the Wall Street Journal.
In particular, the networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies were hacked, writes WSJ citing sources. It should be noted that the hackers could have had access for several months to the network infrastructure used by the companies to fulfill court-authorized requests for communications data. The newspaper claims that the hackers also gained access to other data held by telecommunications companies.
According to the WSJ, the attack was carried out to gather intelligence information. The investigation believes that the Salt Typhoon hacker group is involved.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said today that it was not aware of the hack, but stressed that the United States has “invented false narratives” in the past to “incriminate” China.
Earlier this year, U.S. law enforcement neutralized a major Chinese hacking group, Flax Typhoon, several months after they learned of large-scale cyber espionage by another Chinese-controlled group, Volt Typhoon.
At the time, China’s Foreign Ministry said the country’s cybersecurity authorities had discovered and published evidence that Volt Typhoon was created by an “international ransomware organization.”
*An organization that performs the functions of a foreign agent.
