T-Cell tells us that it has no proof that it was intruded. The corporate is carefully monitoring the industry-wide Salt Hurricane cyberattack and has noticed no important impacts on its techniques or information.
T-Cell is carefully monitoring this industry-wide assault. As a result of our safety controls, community construction and diligent monitoring and response we’ve got seen no important impacts to T-Cell techniques or information. We have now no proof of entry or exfiltration of any buyer or different delicate data as different firms could have skilled. We are going to proceed to observe this carefully, working with {industry} friends and the related authorities.
T-Cell spokesperson, November 2024
In October, Chinese language hacker group Salt Hurricane breached a number of US firms together with AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Applied sciences. The Wall Avenue Journal studies that T-Cell was additionally a sufferer throughout that Chinese language spy marketing campaign.
The Salt Hurricane cyberattack allegedly focused US wiretap techniques that monitor conversations surreptitiously. Apparently, the government-linked Chinese language group needed to entry data that telecommunication firms gather for the US authorities.
It has solely now come to gentle that T-Cell was additionally a sufferer. Hackers backed by a Chinese language intelligence company efficiently focused T-Cell throughout a monthslong operation to snoop on the cellphone communications of high-value intelligence targets.
It is not clear what information was taken within the breach and it hasn’t been confirmed if the hackers have been capable of attain name and communications data of T-Cell prospects. A T-Cell spokeswoman stated that the assault didn’t considerably affect the corporate.
Salt Hurricane reportedly exploited vulnerabilities equivalent to router and swap flaws to penetrate telecom infrastructure and is believed to have utilized synthetic intelligence and machine studying to boost the operations. It was capable of keep its entry to elements of the infrastructure for eight months or longer.
As a part of the broader marketing campaign, the cybercriminals accessed cellphone traces utilized by top-ranking authorities officers and politicians. The entry allowed them to view name logs, unencrypted textual content messages and a few audio from victims. Which means the hacker group was capable of finding out who somebody talked to and when, the frequency of contacts, and presumably location information.
Apparently, the hackers had the power to entry information on any US citizen however they most likely solely went after counterintelligence targets.
The China-led hacking marketing campaign highlights how legally mandated again doorways might give cybercriminals entry factors into vital techniques. It additionally reveals that American telecom firms are extremely susceptible to assaults.