Chinese Hackers Breached A Major US Telecom—and No One Noticed For A Year

Thanks to the digital age, companies are storing information about their customers online. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. One main advantage is being able to access that information anytime, anywhere. The disadvantage is that hackers can now access that information as well. In the case of one US telecom company, a new report has revealed that Chinese hackers may have breached its servers a year before that information was made public.

According to the report, corporate investigators found evidence that Chinese hackers may have breached a US telecom company in the summer of 2023. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about a potential state-sponsored hack. But what makes this alarming is that this hack took place a year before it was discovered.

The investigators discovered malware on the company’s systems used by Chinese state-backed hacking groups. This malware had been sitting there for the past seven months. The hack also occurred a year before US government officials and cybersecurity companies started seeing signs that Chinese hackers had breached America’s largest communication firms.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Marc Rogers, a cybersecurity and telecommunications expert, says, “We’ve known for a long time that this infrastructure has been vulnerable and was likely subject to attack. What this shows us is that it was attacked, and that going as far back as 2023, the Chinese were compromising our telecom companies.”

That said, it’s unclear which US telecom the Chinese hackers breached. The unclassified report does not name the company, and people familiar with the matter have also declined to identify it.

Not the first time

This isn’t the first time Chinese state-backed hackers have targeted US infrastructure. Some of you might have heard of Salt Typhoon, a group that is believed to be backed by China’s Ministry of State Security. It has launched hacks and attacks on the US telecommunications infrastructure. This includes carriers such as AT&T and Verizon.

It is also believed to have siphoned data from millions of Americans. It also targeted phones used by US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The FBI has since placed a $10 million bounty on the group.

US intelligence services have advised companies to be on the lookout for a specific piece of malware called Demodex. However, it is a tricky piece of malware. It has been designed to leave few digital traces and can take measures to hide itself and future activities.