Three months later reports have surfaced Amid a cyberattack, called Salt Typhoon, targeting Internet service providers and wiretapping infrastructure in the United States, two of the largest telecommunications companies say they have made progress in securing their networks against the threat.
AT&T and Verizon each released statements over the weekend regarding Salt Typhoon for the first time since working with federal law enforcement and other entities. AT&T said in its statement that based on its investigation, China targeted a “small number of individuals of foreign intelligence interest” and that the company was working to protect its customers’ data.
Verizon, meanwhile, said it had “contained the cyber incident caused by this nation-state threat actor” and had “not detected threat actor activity” in its network for some time. He adds that a third-party security company confirmed the lockdown.
In late September and early October, reports first described Salt Typhoon attacks, leading the FBI to warn that certain types of messaging, such as RCS text messages between iOS and Android phones, may be in danger.
It now appears that Salt Typhoon was a more targeted attack than previously thought, even though hundreds of millions of customers could have had their personal data and information at risk.
“In this incident, a small number of high-profile customers in government and politics were specifically targeted by the threat actor,” Verizon said in its statement. “These customers have been informed of the activity.”
Verizon and AT&T said they collaborated with government and law enforcement agencies, telecommunications industry partners and private cybersecurity companies.
“In the rare instance where an individual’s information has been impacted, we have complied with our notification obligations,” AT&T said.
This weekend, a ninth company hit by hacking it was said that he was identifiedbut the White House has not released the name of the company.
T-Mobile reiterated Monday that it was not among the nine referenced by the government, SEO a blog post from late November.
