US alleges China hacked calls of 'very senior' political figures: official

The comments by Anne Neuberger, the US deputy national security consultant for cyber and emerging expertise, to reporters at the Manama Dialogue regional security conference in Bahrain’s capital printed unique essential aspects of the campaign

Reuters

08 December, 2024, 12:20 pm

Final modified: 08 December, 2024, 12:27 pm

The US believes that an alleged sweeping Chinese cyber espionage campaign assuredly known as Salt Storm centered and recorded telephone calls of “very senior” American political figures, a White Home real mentioned on Saturday.

The comments by Anne Neuberger, the US deputy national security consultant for cyber and emerging expertise, to reporters at the Manama Dialogue regional security conference in Bahrain’s capital printed unique essential aspects of the campaign.

While a considerable amount of American citizens’ metadata seemingly has been stolen, US officials realize that “the cause of the operation was more centered,” Neuberger mentioned.

“We factor in … the true amount of calls that they took, recorded and took, was if truth be told more centered on very senior political folks,” she persevered.

She did not interpret, together with revealing the identities of these who had been centered.

Chinese officials beforehand delight in described the allegations as disinformation and mentioned that Beijing “firmly opposes and combats cyber assaults and cyber theft in all kinds.”

“We’re calm investigating the scope and scale” of the hacking campaign, Neuberger mentioned.

The Recent York Cases in October reported that members of US President-elect Donald Trump’s family and Biden administration officials had been among these centered by China-linked hackers who broke into telecommunications companies.

A senior US real this week mentioned dozens of companies worldwide had been struck by the hackers, together with now not now not up to eight telecommunications and telecom infrastructure companies in the US

US officials delight in alleged the hackers’ targets included Verizon, AT&T, T-Cell, Lumen, and others and that telephone audio intercepts along with a large tranche of name document files had been stolen.