US govt attributes the latest telecom hack to Salt Typhoon

The White House has included another hacking incident in its telecommunication industry, linking it to the Chinese-backed threat group Salt Typhoon.

The notorious cyberespionage gang that carried out these attacks has a history of infiltrating government and telecom firms throughout SEA since at least 2019.

The representative of the national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies revealed in a report earlier this week that the new victim was identified after the Biden administration issued instructions to help defenders detect Chinese hacking activities in their networks.

Moreover, this White House representative stated that the true nature of the attack is that China is targeting crucial infrastructure in the United States. These targeted entities are private-sector enterprises, and companies still fail to accomplish the basics for the security of their networks.

Hence, the government is looking forward and saying organisations should start implementing robust solutions to secure their infrastructure and should hold the Chinese responsible for this.

 

The new Salt Typhoon campaign is the 9th telecom-related attack.

 

According to a press event last December, the White House disclosed that the China-backed Salt Typhoon APT gang had breached eight US telecoms and carriers in multiple countries.

The White House official said that no confidential communications have been compromised at this time. Still, a CISA official stated they could not confidently say that they evicted the threat actors from the affected entities.

Since the disclosure of these breaches affecting dozens of countries, the authorities have urged senior government officials to switch to end-to-end encrypted messaging apps to mitigate or prevent communication interception risks.

They have also released guidance to assist telecom admins and engineers in strengthening their systems against Salt Typhoon attacks.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced they would prohibit China Telecom’s last active US activities in reaction to Chinese state hackers hijacking various US telecommunication companies.

The US government is also considering banning TP-Link routers beginning next year if the ongoing investigations show their participation in hacks that would endanger national security.