Cyberattacks now possible at a scale many businesses may not be equipped to address
T-Mobile was reportedly hacked in a recent cyber espionage attack on American and international telecommunications companies.
Hackers with ties to a Chinese intelligence agency were able to get into the T-Mobile network as part of months long effort to spy on the cellular communications of high-value intelligence targets, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday (Nov. 15), citing sources familiar with the matter.
The report added that it’s not clear what, if any, information about T-Mobile customers’ calls and communications records was taken in the breach.
“T-Mobile is closely monitoring this industrywide attack, and at this time, T-Mobile systems and data have not been impacted in any significant way, and we have no evidence of impacts to customer information,” a company spokeswoman told WSJ. “We will continue to monitor this closely, working with industry peers and the relevant authorities.”
According to the report, the breach is part of a broader cyberespionage campaign by Chinese hackers — known as Salt Typhoon — that some U.S. officials argue could be historic and catastrophic in scale and severity.
The campaign has already targeted AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies. Sources told WSJ that Salt Typhoon infiltrated U.S. telecom infrastructure through vulnerabilities including Cisco Systems routers, and may have used technologies such as artificial intelligence or machine learning to bolster operations.
Hackers were able to break into cellphone lines used by a range of senior national security and policy officials throughout the U.S. government, as well as some politicians. Once inside, the hackers could access call logs, unencrypted texts and some audio from targets, something that could have a major impact on national security, investigators said.
The news comes at the tail end of a year that has seen several high-profile cyberattacks. And after one of the more recent incidents — involving grocery giant Ahold Delhaize — PYMNTS asked the question: Are retailers equipped to handle evolving cyberthreats?
“With cyberattacks now possible at a scale many businesses may not be equipped to address, companies must prioritize security from the top down,” that report said. “A robust cybersecurity strategy involves continual training, layered security protocols, and an incident response plan that is regularly tested.”
And in an era where a click or a tap makes the difference between landing or losing a sale, cybersecurity is a key factor in how customers perceive and trust a brand.
“Retailers must view cybersecurity as a continuous journey, requiring investment in artificial intelligence-driven fraud detection and partnerships with cybersecurity experts who can provide updates, insights and rapid responses when incidents occur,” that report said.
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| National Security
T-Mobile Hacked in Massive Chinese Breach of Telecom Networks – WSJ
Hackers were able to access information from systems maintained by the carriers to comply with U.S. surveillance requests, raising further counterintelligence concerns
T-Mobile’s network was among the systems hacked in a damaging Chinese cyber-espionage operation that successfully gained entry into multiple U.S. and international telecommunications companies, according to people familiar with the matter.
Hackers linked to a Chinese intelligence agency were able to breach T-Mobile as part of monthslong campaign to spy on the cellphone communications of high-value intelligence targets. It is unclear what information, if any, was taken about T-Mobile customers’ calls and communications records.
“T-Mobile is closely monitoring this industry-wide attack, and at this time, T-Mobile systems and data have not been impacted in any significant way, and we have no evidence of impacts to customer information,” a company spokeswoman said. “We will continue to monitor this closely, working with industry peers and the relevant authorities.”
The compromise of T-Mobile expands the list of known victims of a cyber-espionage campaign by Chinese hackers—dubbed Salt Typhoon—that some U.S. officials consider to be historic and catastrophic in scope and severity. The Journal previously reported in October that AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies were among the telecom companies that suffered an intrusion.
The group used sophisticated methods to infiltrate American telecom infrastructure through vulnerabilities including Cisco Systems routers, and investigators suspect the hackers relied on artificial intelligence or machine learning to further their espionage operations , people familiar with the matter said. The attackers penetrated at least some of that infrastructure over eight months or more.
In the broader hacking campaign, attackers were able to access cellphone lines used by an array of senior national security and policy officials across the U.S. government, in addition to politicians. The access allowed them to scoop up call logs, unencrypted texts and some audio from targets, in what investigators believe may have significant national-security ramifications.
Additionally, the hackers were able to access information from systems maintained by the carriers to comply with U.S. surveillance requests, raising further counterintelligence concerns. Investigators are still endeavoring to fully understand and have said the attack was carried out by the Salt Typhoon group. At Lumen, which doesn’t provide wireless service, the attackers didn’t steal any customer data or access its wiretap capabilities, according to people familiar with the matter.
Some foreign telecommunications firms were also compromised in the hacks, including in countries that maintain close intelligence-sharing partnerships with the U.S., people familiar with the matter said.
Earlier this week, the Biden administration acknowledged in a public statement some details about the nature of the “broad and significant” hack that were previously reported by the Journal.
Chinese government-linked hackers had compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies “to enable the theft of customer call records data, the compromise of private communications of a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity, and the copying of certain information that was subject to U.S. law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders,” the statement from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said.
“We expect our understanding of these compromises to grow as the investigation continues,” it added.
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Nancy Pelosi is finished — no one deserves more blame for Dems $1B electoral collapse
“I think it’s really ironic that you have a woman at age 84 and she is still hanging on. Why not give a younger generation an opportunity to occupy that seat?”
It’s high time to shatter the myth of Nancy Pelosi as a master strategist. Nobody deserves more blame than the ridiculously self-titled “speaker emerita” for the Democrats’ $1 billion electoral collapse.
Under her ruthless leadership, her party lost the White House, the House, the Senate and the popular vote. You can’t say that enough.
Voters rejected the Dems coast to coast, even in Pelosi’s deepest-blue home city of San Francisco, which saw a 7-point swing to Donald Trump.
She’s the only speaker in history to have lost control of the House twice.
She’s finished.
The empress emeritus has no clothes, perish the thought.
And yet she still has the hide to reward herself with another term, filing the papers last week to run for re-election in 2026, at the tender age of 86! She’ll be 88 at the end of Trump’s term.
When is too much enough?
Her saccharine-coated “Mean Girls” style of partisan viciousness and deviousness turns out to have done nothing for her party but postpone the inevitable reckoning between radical left and common sense moderates. Unfortunately for the Dems, most of the latter have taken a hike under Pelosi’s reign.
If the GOP is Trump’s party, the Democratic Party is Pelosi’s — and what a viper’s nest of blame-shifting and rancor it has become, as they all blame each other for their humiliating defeat at the hands of the man they derided as a Nazi. Most Americans didn’t agree, and now the Democrats and their media handmaidens stand exposed as frauds and liars.
If Trump is such an “existential threat” to democracy, as Pelosi insisted to the bitter end, then why did Joe Biden greet him with open arms and a beaming smile the other day?
“Welcome back,” said the president to the man Pelosi vowed would never again set foot in the White House.
“I decided a while ago that Donald Trump will never set foot in the White House again as president of the United States or in any other capacity,” she told The Guardian before the election when she was trying to justify the coup against Biden, her former longtime friend who she kept lying was “sharp as a tack” until he fell apart on live TV.
With her party in ruins, the pent-up frustration with Pelosi’s iron grip and flawed judgment is starting to find voice. Expect it to get louder as her efforts to off-load blame on Biden leave a sour taste with party loyalists.
Since the humiliating defeat, Pelosi has been filmed publicly squabbling with Donna Brazile, has traded barbs with Bernie Sanders and has been ripped on “The View” and MSNBC. The Washington Post fact-checker even awarded her “Four Pinocchio’s” for lying that illegal migration was worse under Trump than Biden.
“The View” co-host Ana Navarro called Pelosi “nasty” for telling The New York Times that the Dems would have won if Biden had quit sooner.
“She wants to make sure people know it wasn’t her, [that] she has no blame in this. . . . It’s really unseemly.”
Symone Sanders Townsend, MSNBC host and former Biden aide, blasted Pelosi for helping “orchestrate the very public demise of the president.”
“Nancy Pelosi, everybody talks about how the speaker emerita, you know, she’s so strategic, she can count, she did all of that when she was the speaker in Congress, but my question is: Where is your calculator now?”
Anonymous Dem lawmakers vented their spleen to Axios last week.
“She needs to take a seat,” said one senior Democrat of Pelosi. “Making scattershot comments [blaming others] is not just unhelpful, it’s damaging.”
“Hakeem [Jeffries] has been tremendously graceful and respectful of her, but I don’t think she is being respectful of him,” said another Dem, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
‘She’s the enforcer’
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) wasn’t afraid to go on the record to express his frustration at Pelosi’s toxic legacy.
“She embraced this ‘she’s the Godmother, she’s the enforcer’ [image] and now she’s blaming Biden,” he told Politico last week. “Well, you can’t have it both ways. You got what you wanted, and now you’re still blaming Biden.
“I think it’s really ironic that you have a woman at age 84 and she is still hanging on. Why not give a younger generation an opportunity to occupy that seat?”
Why not, indeed. The only reason she’s hanging around Congress is the same reason she demanded her successor as speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, bestow on her the “emerita” title: her ego.
She believes she is the only person capable of crippling Trump’s second presidency like she did his first, and she is addicted to the adulation of a lapdog press overly impressed with the fact she is female. They even praised her classless, divisive stunt of ripping up Trump’s State of the Union speech in 2020 standing right behind him at the podium for all the world to see.
In her two decades of amoral, divisive leadership, the Democrats have become the party of censorship, scolds, war and corporate interests.
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