Suspected China-linked hack on US telecoms worst in nation's history, senator says

FILE PHOTO: US and Chinese flags are seen through broken glass in this illustration taken Jan 30, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

A breach of telecoms companies that the United States said was linked to China was the "worst telecom hack in our nation's history - by far," the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee told the Washington Post on Thursday.

Earlier this month, US authorities said China-linked hackers had intercepted surveillance data intended for American law enforcement agencies after breaking into an unspecified number of telecom companies.

The hackers compromised the networks of "multiple telecommunications companies" and stole US customer call records and communications from "a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity," according to a joint statement released by the FBI and the US cyber watchdog agency CISA on Nov 13.

Beijing has repeatedly denied claims by the US government and others that it has used hackers to break into foreign computer systems.

"For quite some time, the US side has been floating all sorts of disinformation about threats of “Chinese hackers” to serve its own geopolitical purposes," Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for China's embassy in Washington said in a statement sent on Friday. "China firmly opposes and combats all kinds of cyber attacks."

There were also reports that Chinese hackers targeted telephones belonging to then-presidential and vice presidential candidates Donald Trump and JD Vance, along with other senior political figures, raising widespread concern over the security of US telecommunications infrastructure.

“This is an ongoing effort by China to infiltrate telecom systems around the world, to exfiltrate huge amounts of data,” Mark Warner told the Washington Post.

The breach went further than the Biden administration has acknowledged, with hackers able to listen to telephone conversations and read text messages, Warner was cited as saying in a separate interview by the New York Times.

"The barn door is still wide open, or mostly open," he told the publication.