Chinese hackers who earlier this month infiltrated the U.S. wiretap system have apparently expanded their telecom network access to target data from phones used by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and vice presidential candidate JD Vance.
The “Salt Typhoon” group apparently also targeted “prominent figures on Capitol Hill and possibly staff members of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign,” according to a New York Times report today, and the Wall Street Journal reported that companies were targeted too.
The officials’ phone numbers were targeted “through the infiltration of Verizon phone systems,” the Times said.
In a joint statement today, the FBI and CISA said they are “investigating the unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.”
The statement did not provide details but said the FBI “identified specific malicious activity targeting the sector.” FBI and CISA “immediately notified affected companies, rendered technical assistance, and rapidly shared information to assist other potential victims.”
U.S. agencies “are collaborating to aggressively mitigate this threat and are coordinating with our industry partners to strengthen cyber defenses across the commercial communications sector,” the statement concluded.
Not Clear What Data Chinese Hackers Accessed
It’s not clear what data the hackers accessed and whether it included text messages. The investigation is ongoing, and the FBI and U.S. national security officials “have signaled that they are deeply concerned about the potential extent of compromised data and the wide range of possible victims,” the Times said.
The hackers may still be inside Verizon’s systems, the report said.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “Investigators now believe that the hackers gained access to U.S. telecommunications infrastructure and targeted or compromised at least several dozen different companies and people.” They also targeted a Wall Street Journal reporter, the paper said.
Foreign Election Interference Widespread
Even by the standards of the last two presidential election cycles, the 2024 race has been marked by an extremely high level of foreign disinformation and hacking campaigns, with Russia, China and Iran the most active of those foreign actors.
Perhaps most noteworthy was an August hack of the Trump campaign by Iran. The documents stolen by the Iranian hackers – which included a 271-page research dossier on Vance – have gone unpublished by U.S. media, but Reuters reported this week that some of those documents have begun to trickle out on Substack and other platforms.
Earlier this week, a report by Microsoft said another Iranian group – “Cotton Sandstorm” – is targeting election-related websites and media outlets. The Microsoft report noted “sustained influence efforts by Russia, Iran, and China aimed at undermining U.S. democratic processes.”
And The Washington Post this week reported on a former Florida deputy sheriff “who fled to Moscow and became one of the Kremlin’s most prolific propagandists,” working with Russian military intelligence to create deepfakes and circulate disinformation targeting the Harris campaign.
Election Infrastructure Secure; Disinformation is the Threat
Throughout the blizzard of disinformation and hacking campaigns, U.S. cybersecurity and national security officials have made clear that the U.S. election system is safe, and that disinformation is the much bigger problem.
CISA Director Jen Easterly reiterated those views in a LinkedIn post this week.
“Whoever you vote for, you can be confident that your vote will be counted as cast,” Easterly said. “Elections are political; election security is not. Despite the firehose of inaccurate info about election security being spread by foreign adversaries intent on weakening our country and pitting Americans against each other, the fact is that election infrastructure has never been more secure and our election officials have never been better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free, and fair elections.”
One top U.S. election observer – David Becker, executive director and founder of The Center for Election Innovation & Research – agrees that disinformation is the bigger risk. Becker notes that fewer than 2% of all U.S. voters this November will vote on machines without any paper ballot or backup, and those voters reside only in Louisiana (statewide) and a few counties in Texas.
“The threat of ‘hacking’ of machines is quite overblown, given the success advocates have had in promoting paper ballots and audits nationwide, along with disconnection from the internet,” Becker told The Cyber Express earlier this fall in a report for Cyble. “It is a high risk, low reward endeavor, which, even if attempted, would almost certainly be detected and prosecuted, and the existence of verifiable paper ballots means the election could be reconstructed.”
