Chinese hackers are actively listening to phone calls and reading the text messages of government and political workers in the Washington, D.C. 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.”
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said the hackers are still in the networks, 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.
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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’ll have to replace thousands of pieces of equipment across the country.
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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, giving the Chinese access to millions of calls and text messages, a number that’s expected to increase.
The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency made a joint announcement about the attack in November. They said hackers also obtained information that was subject to U.S. law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders.
Straight Arrow News spoke with Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., 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.
“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,” Johnson said. “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’s crucial the public understand the intrusion wasn’t confined to Washington but was far broader and exposed critical vulnerabilities.
