Chinese hackers listening to calls, reading texts of US government officials

[Ray]

Chinese hackers are actively listening to phone calls and reading the text messages of government and political workers in the DC capital region. In an interview with the Washington Post, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee called it the, “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history — by far.”

Senator Mark Warner said the hackers are still in the networks, they’re listening to calls in real time and have been able to move from one telecom network to another. The impacted companies include AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. 

The hackers are members of a group called ‘Salt Typhoon’. 

The attack started more than a year ago. Warner told the Post to get the hackers out of the system they will have to replace thousands of pieces of equipment across the country. 

They targeted the phones of President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, members of the Harris campaign and State Department employees. 

In total, there are only about 150 known victims. That’s given the Chinese access to millions of call and text messages, a number that’s expected to increase.

The FBI and CISA made a joint announcement about the attack in which they said hackers also obtained information that was subject to U.S. law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders.

Straight Arrow News spoke with Congressman Dusty Johnson about the attack, he explained how China and the Chinese Communist Party uses data as a weapon unlike any other country or entity in history. 

Johnson: “They are experts at using data, piled upon data, piled upon data to put together some really exquisite weapons that we don’t even fully understand the capabilities of. But we know that no enterprise in the history of humankind has ever been able to use data as a weapon like the CCP has. I don’t know what they’re all doing. I know they clearly find some value with it if they’re going to spend tremendous resources in constantly probing our defenses to get in and steal that information.”

Warner said it is crucial that the public understand the intrusion was not confined to Washington but was far broader and exposed critical vulnerabilities.