Chinese hackers breached US court wiretap systems, WSJ reports

Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorised wiretapping, The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct 5.

Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies are among the telecoms companies whose networks were breached in the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorised US requests for communications data, the newspaper said. It said the hackers had also accessed other tranches of internet traffic.

China’s Foreign Ministry responded on Oct 6 that it was not aware of the attack described in the report, but said the US had “concocted a false narrative” to “frame” China in the past.

“At a time when cyber security has become a common challenge for all countries around the world, this erroneous approach will only hinder the efforts of the international community to jointly address the challenge through dialogue and cooperation,” the ministry said in a statement to Reuters.

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

Lumen Technologies declined to comment, while Verizon and AT&T did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Wall Street Journal said the attack was carried out by a Chinese hacking group with the aim of collecting intelligence. US investigators have dubbed it “Salt Typhoon”.

Earlier in 2024, US law enforcement disrupted a major Chinese hacking group nicknamed “Flax Typhoon”, months after confronting Beijing about sweeping cyber espionage under a campaign named “Volt Typhoon”.

REUTERS