Sweeping Chinese hack of U.S. telecoms firms is 'still going on,' homeland security secretary says
A sweeping Chinese government hacking campaign against American telecoms firms is a “very, very serious matter” that is “still going on,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an interview.
A sweeping Chinese government hacking campaign against American telecoms firms is a “very, very serious matter” that is “still going on,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday in an interview on MSNBC.
Mayorkas confirmed that the long-term effort, nicknamed Salt Typhoon, was “a very sophisticated hack” that was not done “overnight.”
The hacking campaign is one of the largest intelligence compromises in U.S. history. It has breached eight domestic telecom and internet service providers and dozens of others around the world, a White House official said this month. The United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand claim it is part of an intelligence operation conducted by China.
The presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, as well as the office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told NBC News in October that the FBI had informed them that they had been targeted.
Mayorkas said that the federal government has “taken action” and that the “telecom providers are focused intensely on it, and they are working in partnership with us to remediate it.”
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