Millions of U.S. cellphone users could be vulnerable to Chinese government surveillance, warns a Washington Post columnist, “on the networks of at least three major U.S. carriers.”
They cite six current or former senior U.S. officials, all of whom were briefed about the attack by the U.S. intelligence community.
The Chinese hackers, who the United States believes are linked to Beijing’s Ministry of State Security, have burrowed inside the private wiretapping and surveillance system that American telecom companies built for the exclusive use of U.S. federal law enforcement agencies — and the U.S. government believes they likely continue to have access to the system…. The U.S. government and the telecom companies that are dealing with the breach have said very little publicly about it since it was first detected in August, leaving the public to rely on details trickling out through leaks…
The so-called lawful-access system breached by the Salt Typhoon hackers was established by telecom carriers after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to allow federal law enforcement officials to execute legal warrants for records of Americans’ phone activity or to wiretap them in real time, depending on the warrant. Many of these cases are authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is used to investigate foreign spying that involves contact with U.S. citizens. The system is also used for legal wiretaps related to domestic crimes.
It is unknown whether hackers were able to access records about classified wiretapping operations, which could compromise federal criminal investigations and U.S. intelligence operations around the world, multiple officials told me. But they confirmed the previous reporting that hackers were able to both listen in on phone calls and monitor text messages. “Right now, China has the ability to listen to any phone call in the United States, whether you are the president or a regular Joe, it makes no difference,” one of the hack victims briefed by the FBI told me. “This has compromised the entire telecommunications infrastructure of this country.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported on Oct. 5 that China-based hackers had penetrated the networks of U.S. telecom providers and might have penetrated the system that telecom companies operate to allow lawful access to wiretapping capabilities by federal agencies… [After releasing a short statement], the FBI notified 40 victims of Salt Typhoon, according to multiple officials. The FBI informed one person who had been compromised that the initial group of identified targets included six affiliated with the Trump campaign, this person said, and that the hackers had been monitoring them as recently as last week… “They had live audio from the president, from JD, from Jared,” the person told me. “There were no device compromises, these were all real-time interceptions….” [T]he duration of the surveillance is believed to date back to last year.
Several officials told the columnist that the cyberattack also targetted senior U.S. government officials and top business leaders — and that even more compromised targets are being discovered. At this point, “Multiple officials briefed by the investigators told me the U.S. government does not know how many people were targeted, how many were actively surveilled, how long the Chinese hackers have been in the system, or how to get them out.”
But the article does include this quote from U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Mark Warner. “It is much more serious and much worse than even what you all presume at this point.”
One U.S. representative suggested Americans rely more on encrypted apps.
The U.S. is already investigating — but while researching the article, the columnist writes, “The National Security Council declined to comment, and the FBI did not respond to a request for comment…” They end with this recommendation.
“If millions of Americans are vulnerable to Chinese surveillance, they have a right to know now.”
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