JR Afternoon with Chris Renwick

Unmasking the Biggest Telecom Hack in U.S. History

November 22, 2024 ~ Chris Renwick and Washington Post National Security Reporter, Ellen Nakashima report on the “salt typhoon” hack, a major Chinese espionage breach in U.S. telecoms, affecting key figures and prompting national security concerns.

Duration:: 9m
Broadcast on:: 22 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

So what US intelligence official told the Washington Post that this salt typhoon hack is the worst telecom hack in our nation's history by far. It's a Chinese government espionage campaign that has penetrated more than a dozen US telecommunications companies. They were able to hack into the phones of both Donald Trump and JD Vance and hack into the phones of people who were working on the Harris campaign. Now according to lawmakers that that wasn't necessarily election related, but they are very much still the their talents are still very much in much of our telecommunication systems. Let's bring in Ellen Nakashima. She's the national security reporter for the Washington Post and joins me this afternoon. Ellen, it's great to have you. I I I I shudder to think how bad this really truly is. Yeah, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner, is very alarmed and wants the American public to know that this is in his in his view the worst telecom hack in the nation's history. As you pointed out, the US government, the intelligence agencies FBI, they're still investigating the matter to figure out just how broadly and deeply all of these telecom companies were penetrated whether there are others that still haven't been discovered that I've been compromised. It's unclear how much data they were able to exfiltrate. They are still inside the networks. Not clear how active they are at the moment or whether they're just lying in wait, waiting quietly to do more exfiltration when people aren't looking. But it is a very serious and surprising shocking development for the government. So according to the FBI in your piece, which I would point people to, it's a lot of really good information about this. There are only been 150 people or so that have been notified by intelligence officials that there was a problem. But I mean, this goes back to, in some cases, more than a year ago. Was our intelligence aware of this? And if they weren't aware of it when it happened initially, when did they become aware that there was something really wrong here? I think the US government became aware that this was a really serious matter really only in late September. Industry notified them in the fall. Some, there might have been some efforts to notify earlier. But in terms of really starting to focus in on it, that didn't really happen until September and late September. Now, you mentioned that fewer than 150 people have been identified and notified by the FBI. That's true. Right now, the known scope of the victims set, those who've actually had their phones compromised is about, it's fewer than 150. But the records of all of these people who, the people that these individuals called or texted could well have been stolen by the Chinese hackers. And those records amount to the millions Senator Warner said, and that number could go up. But what was there a specific target here? Was there a particular goal in mind by these Chinese hackers? What were they trying to get into? What were they looking for? Yeah, clearly they were focused at least initially on public, you know, government officials at the State Department, those who focused on the China policy area, politicians, public figures, obviously people like Vice President Harris, President then, you know, candidate for President Trump, Donald Trump and his running mate, just to sort of get in and see what they can learn about these public figures. And should they, you know, become the next president of the United States, what their views are like, who they're talking to, who's in their orbit. These are all people of great interest to Chinese policymakers and leaders. And in a sense, that's a traditional espionage target, right? The Chinese have been doing this kind of espionage for years and years. But the way in which they're going about it now is very, is brazen and very shocking to the telco itself too. Is there a real worry that there is a national security breach here? Obviously, when you get into the phones of a presidential candidate and then a president elect and his running mate, that's a problem. But is there a worry that our national security is at risk because of this attack? The because the hackers have not yet been, you know, booted out of the system. And because they have such deep access to the networks, that is indeed a national security threat. And one that is so concerning that the government has set up, in fact, a special task force group, crisis group, really, to investigate or coordinate investigation to make sure they're on top of that. And it's something they do only in really severe cases. So, you know, this is still something that they're far from fully understanding. Is there a concern or I guess any sort of worry at all that if these telecommunications have been hacked, they're in people's phones potentially or their laptops or their iPads, whatever it is. Is there a concern that these devices are going to need to be replaced? Are they going to have to be wiped? Like, what's the concern for people's actual devices that they hold in their hands or that they have? Well, people who have been targeted devices, I'm sure have been, I know, personally, people who have had to replace their devices, right? They're not using the ones that were hacked. And as I said, it's not clear right now how active the hackers are. Right now, it doesn't appear to be the sort of campaign that's meant to be disruptive or consist of sabotage. You know, like making things shut down or blow up, it was really seem more to be focused around collecting information, espionage, power espionage. But once you're inside the network, you know, you have access. So there's still a lot to be understood about the way in which they got in and how they're moving and what more they might have access to without us understanding that. Senator Warner, who you spoke with at length as a main contributor in your piece at the Washington Post, he talked about the colonial pipelines, the solar winds, cyber hacks that were incredibly disruptive. And he says that this attack makes those look like child's play. And you mentioned that they don't really understand the full scope of it now. So what's next for the intel as they continue to probe and try to find out how bad this really is? They really still need to know exactly how the hackers got in and where and where and how they moved around and what other victims or companies might be effective to include other companies overseas. Warner, Senator Warner mentioned this was a global effort and the Chinese are active, in fact, globally. And though this is not directly related to this other campaign called both typhoons, they do have another campaign meant to preposition themselves inside critical infrastructure. Assets like ports and pipeline around the world. I just have 30 seconds left here. Is there any sort of response to this by the Biden administration or the federal government yet? Well, yes, they've announced publicly that they are investigating that they are considered this so severe. They set up the White House set up this, they call it unified coordination group, like a sort of a crisis task force to coordinate the investigation into this. And I quoted some other officials saying that it's time to maybe start looking at some form of regulation of the telecom industry. So that might look for that happening coming month. Interesting. A really interesting piece and certainly problematic, but really well outlined. Alan Nakashima, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate your piece on this. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, 800-859-0957-800-859-0WJR. If you want to weigh in on that, it's there for you. In the meantime, we'll take a break. Come back for more here on JR Afternoon.