by Ethan Huff, Natural News:
The political establishment is in an uproar over a recent telecommunications industry security breach that was supposedly caused by a hacking group tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, claims a hacking group called “Salt Typhoon” is responsible for unleashing the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history.”
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The stolen data was intended for U.S. law enforcement agencies to use, but instead ended up in the hands of officials in Beijing, we are told.
Salt Typhoon reportedly obtained access to cables that allowed them to listen live to audio calls, some of which were routed through multiple telecom networks via “trust” connections that were exploited.
Less than 150 people were directly affected by the breach, most of them in the nation’s capital. However, potentially “millions” of people had their call and text records hacked by the group, which could use information therein to target Americans for surveillance.
(Related: Back in the summer, one of the world’s largest IT providers that services the U.S. military-industrial complex suffered a major cybersecurity breach that put the U.S. government’s most sensitive files at risk of being publicly leaked.)
Chinese hackers also went after Trump, Vance
Washington is really upset about this whole thing because it and only it is allowed to spy on Americans like this. The fact that China allegedly joined in on the fun as well has the U.S. political elite fuming mad.
The telecom industry has known about the cyberattack since at least September, which is when it started notifying the government that something illicit was taking place.
According to Warner, what Salt Typhoon did makes the Colonial Pipeline and SolarWinds hacks “look like child’s play” – and the intruders, he says, are still active.
Washington is calling the breach an espionage operation, not a prelude to infrastructure sabotage like some believe. Time will tell, of course, which scenario ends up being true.
Hackers from Salt Typhoon have apparently broken into a government system that archives U.S. law enforcement’s criminal wiretap requests so individuals of interest can be identified by the authorities. As far as is being reported, the hackers did not compromise the actual wiretapping system used to listen in on people’s calls.
