White House says 9th telecoms company has been hacked as part of Chinese espionage campaign

The White House said Friday that a ninth U.S. telecommunications company has been hacked as part of a Chinese espionage campaign that gave the country’s officials access to private texts and phone conversations of Americans.

The Biden administration said earlier this month that at least eight telecommunications companies and dozens of nations had been impacted by the Chinese hacking operation known as Salt Typhoon.

On Friday, deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger told reporters that a ninth victim had been identified after the administration released guidance to companies about how to locate Chinese hackers in their networks.

The hackers compromised the networks of telecommunications companies to gather customer call records and access the private communications of a limited number of people, officials said.

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Anne Neuberger, Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology, speaks during a press briefing at the White House, March 21, 2022, in Washington. (AP)

The FBI has not publicly identified any of the victims, but officials believe senior U.S. government officials and prominent political figures are among the victims whose communications were accessed.

Neuberger said officials did not yet have a precise sense of how many Americans overall were targeted by Salt Typhoon, in part because the hackers were careful about their methods, but she said that a “large number” of the victims were in Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

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Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology Anne Neuberger speaks during the daily press briefing at the White House on February 17, 2021, in Washington. (Getty Images)

Officials said they believe the hackers wanted to identify who owned the devices and spy on their texts and phone calls if they were “government targets of interest,” Neuberger said.

Most of the victims are “primarily involved in government or political activity,” the FBI said.

Neuberger said the hacking showed the need for required cybersecurity practices in the telecommunications industry, which the Federal Communications Commission is set to look at during a meeting next month.

U.S. and Chinese flags are set up before a meeting between U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Saturday, July 8, 2023.  (Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS)

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She also said, without offering details, that the government was planning further action in the coming weeks in response to the hacking campaign, though she did not say what they were.

“We know that voluntary cybersecurity practices are inadequate to protect against China, Russia and Iran hacking of our critical infrastructure,” she said.

The Chinese government has denied responsibility for the hacking campaign.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.