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A former FBI official claims that it’s likely every American has been impacted by a Chinese-state-sponsored cyberattack.
International law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and National Security Agency, issued a joint advisory in September warning the public that CCP-sponsored actors are “targeting” many aspects of American lives, including telecommunications, government, transportation, lodging, and military infrastructure networks.
The cyberattack wasn’t limited to the U.S. and targeted many countries around the globe, according to the advisory. According to the international agencies, the three Chinese companies believed to be behind Salt Typhoon work for China’s intelligence services, which include units in the People’s Liberation Army and Ministry of State Security.
Through the information gathered during the cyberattacks, the Chinese intelligence services can “identify and track their targets’ communications and movements around the world.”
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The cyberattack impacted many counties around the globe. (Getty Images)
Cynthia Kaiser, a former high-ranking official in the FBI’s cyber division, told the New York Times it’s hard to envision a scenario where any American wasn’t impacted by the hack.
“I can’t imagine any American was spared given the breadth of the campaign,” she said.
Those directly impacted by the cyberattack include senior U.S. government officials and prominent political figures whose communications were accessed, according to the FBI.
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The national flags of the United States and China flutter at the Fairmont Peace Hotel on April 25, 2024 in Shanghai, China. (Wang Gang/VCG via Getty Images)
Pete Nicoletti, chief information security officer at Check Point, told Digital that those behind the Salt Typhoon cyberattack had unprecedented access to phone calls being placed by Americans.
“They had full reign access,” Nicoletti, said. “So, you know, your grandmother calling you to remind you to pick up groceries was not a targeted person and they’re gonna listen into that call. But Trump, Vance, Kamala Harris, and dozens of other US government officials were specifically targeted.”
Nicoletti said the Salt Typhoon hackers “established a foothold and exfiltrated data for five years,” which is “almost unprecedented.”
Yet the cybersecurity expert says his greatest concern is not what Salt Typhoon may target in the future, but whether the group remains embedded inside companies and agencies that still haven’t discovered the intrusion.
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Chinese military personnel head to a field to participate in the Golden Dragon military exercise in Svay Chok village, Kampong Chhnang province, north of Phnom Penh Cambodia, Thursday, May 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
“My biggest concern is they’re still in various organizations and undetected,” he said. “So the thing that I worry about is not the next time that these guys hack somebody, it’s what they’re doing currently and who they’re in.”
When discussing the cyberattack in December 2024, then-deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger said the hackers worked to identify the owners of various devices, then spy on phone calls and text messages if they were “government targets of interest.”
Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.
