Chinese telecom hackers likely holding stolen data 'in perpetuity' for later attempts, FBI official says

"Salt Typhoon, as the group is widely known, accessed dozens of telecom providers around the world in a multi-year espionage campaign that was first publicly disclosed in 2024. In the U.S., the hackers targeted communications of top political officials by accessing the government's "lawful intercept" systems that facilitate court-ordered wiretapping requests. The breach has been widely deemed one of the worst telecom espionage intrusions in U.S. history. It remains unconfirmed whether the cyberspies have been fully purged from American networks."

""But we have no doubt that it could be used for surveillance and certainly future exploitation." "Presumably, this data, once stolen, will be held in perpetuity by the Chinese government and added and aggregated with everything else they have, and everything else they will steal from each and every one of us," he said. He added that Salt Typhoon, for certain, "stole information from well over a million Americans directly.""

Salt Typhoon, a Chinese state-backed hacking group, infiltrated dozens of telecom providers globally in a multi-year espionage campaign dating back to at least 2019 and publicly disclosed in 2024. The group accessed U.S. government lawful-intercept systems that handle court-ordered wiretaps, enabling access to communications of top political officials. The intrusions have been characterized as among the worst telecom espionage incidents in U.S. history, and it remains unconfirmed whether the actors have been fully removed from American networks. Stolen data appears likely to be retained indefinitely for surveillance, future exploitation, aggregation with other datasets, and potential fraud.

Read at Nextgov.com