FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) officials are urging Americans to use encrypted messaging apps following China's unprecedented cyber attacks on major companies such as AT&T and Verizon. There is.
The FBI and CISA are urging Americans to use encryption apps to hide their communications from foreign hackers, officials said, and will determine when telecommunications companies will be safe from these intruders again. He added that it was “impossible”. report According to NBC News.
The Chinese hacking campaign known as “Salt Typhoon” targeting companies such as Microsoft “represented one of the largest information breaches in U.S. history and has yet to be fully repaired,” the news agency reported.
U.S. officials told NBC on Tuesday that Chinese spies hacked AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., told the outlet that there was no communist regime behind the hack, adding: “China firmly opposes and combats all kinds of cyber-attacks.” Ta.
However, Jeff Green, CISA's executive assistant director of cybersecurity, told NBC: voice communication. ”
“Even if an adversary could intercept the data, it would be impossible if the data was encrypted,” Green added.
Meanwhile, FBI officials say people who want to protect their communications can use email, social media, and other messaging tools.
The foreign hackers accessed three main types of information, an FBI official said on condition of anonymity.
The first type involves call records that reveal the phone numbers people called and the times the calls were made, and typically focuses on call records in the Washington, DC area. The FBI will not provide information to people whose phone records were compromised.
The second type of hack involved live phone calls to specific targets.
The FBI has not said who the targets are, but the offices of President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) were reported to NBC in October. In response, the FBI said it had passed information on the president-elect to the president-elect. They were targeted.
The third issue reportedly involves systems that carriers happen to use when law enforcement or intelligence agencies need to access people's information pursuant to a court order.
The FBI official added that although the foreign hack occurred ahead of the 2024 election, U.S. authorities do not believe it was done with the intent of swaying the election results.
Rather, the hack was likely aimed at gathering information about U.S. politics and government, FBI officials told NBC.
“We view this as cyber espionage, no different than any other approach,” the FBI official said. “Certainly, their approach was very specific to carriers and ISPs, but it falls under the category of cyber espionage.”
Encrypted messaging apps that consumers can use to employ end-to-end encryption on calls and text messages include Signal and WhatsApp. Google Messages and iMessage are also options.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. you can follow her facebook And with X @ARmastrangeloand further Instagram.
