China-linked hacking group believed to have tried to hack phones of presidential candidates Harris, Trump, Vance
China-affiliated hackers infiltrated Verizon’s telephone network and targeted prominent US political figures, including Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources.
The hacks appear to be part of a wide-ranging intelligence-gathering campaign waged by a hacking group affiliated with the Chinese government that US investigators have called “Salt Typhoon”.
The group was responsible for the hacks mentioned in the Times report.
Authorities say the same group also carried out attacks on a number of US broadband providers, including AT&T and Verizon, potentially accessing information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorised network wiretapping requests, the Wall Street Journal reported this month.
Phone numbers targeted
The Trump campaign team was made aware last week that Trump and Vance were among a number of people inside and outside government whose phone numbers were targeted through the Verizon phone network hack, the Times reported, citing unnamed officials.
The report and others said staff members of Kamala Harris’ campaign were also targeted.
Security officials discovered earlier this year that China-linked hackers had penetrated US telecoms firms, but only recently determined that specific numbers had been targeted, the Times report said.
Multiple people were targeted, beyond those involved in the 2024 US presidential bid, the report said.
The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a joint statement that the hack was carried out by “actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China”.
The agencies said they are “collaborating to aggressively mitigate this threat and are coordinating with our industry partners to strengthen cyberdefenses across the commercial communications sector”.
They said those targeted had been informed.
It was unclear what, if any, information was obtained.
Political hack
A Trump campaign spokesman criticised the White House and Harris and blamed them for allowing the hack to take place.
Verizon said it was “aware that a highly sophisticated nation-state actor has reportedly targeted several US telecommunications providers to gather intelligence” and that it was working with law enforcement on the investigation and to remediate any ongoing problems.
In August the Trump campaign acknowledged it has been hacked by Iranian government-linked attackers, in an incident that recalled a similar hacking campaign by Russia against the Democratic organisation believed to have had a critical influence on the 2016 elections.
Iran denied involvement.
Political news site Politico reported it began receiving internal documents from the Trump campaign from an anonymous account, which the campaign said were “obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States”.
