A cyberattack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of U.S. broadband providers, potentially accessing information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized network wiretapping requests.
For months or longer, the hackers might have held access to network infrastructure used to cooperate with lawful U.S. requests for communications data, according to people familiar with the matter, which amounts to a major national security risk. The attackers also had access to other tranches of more generic internet traffic, they said. – Source
A new report from the Wall Street Journal cites insider government sources in warning that Chinese hackers have been actively targeting US ISPs, and have gained access to at least a “handful” of them.
The hackers, a state-backed team referred to as “Salt Typhoon,” were spotted stealing data and planting backdoors and other capabilities meant for use in future cyber attacks. This news closely follows an FBI warning about another Beijing-linked group called “Flax Typhoon” that wields a gigantic botnet against an assortment of targets in rival nations.
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