The Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed hackers associated with the People's Republic of China have stolen data related to lawful wiretaps, after hacking into a number of U.S. telecommunication providers.
In a joint statement, the FBI and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency said the ongoing investigation into China's targeting of commercial telecommunications infrastructure has uncovered a significant espionage campaign.
"We have identified that PRC-affiliated actors have compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies to enable the theft of customer call records data," the statement reads.
Furthermore, the FBI said the hacking activity compromised private communications between certain individuals involved in government and politics, while other information "subject to U.S. law enforcement requests," were illegally copied.
"We expect our understanding of these compromises to grow as the investigation continues."
In late October, Politico reported then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, had been two of those people targeted by Chinese hackers.
Trump's campaign team were informed there was a potential breach, which could have given hackers access to private communications, and even location data, as Trump uses his private iPhone for social media and making calls and sending text messages.
During the Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats in April, FBI Director Christopher Wray said China poses a "broad and unrelenting" threat to U.S. national and economic security, with U.S. critical infrastructure being a prime target.
"The PRC has made it clear that it considers every sector that makes our society run as fair game in its bid to dominate on the world stage, and that its plan is to land low blows against civilian infrastructure to try to induce panic and break America's will to resist," Wray said.
Wray noted the threat is "driven by the CCP's [Chinese Communist Party] aspiration to wealth and power," and pointed out China will "seize economic development in the areas most critical to tomorrow's economy," by any means necessary if it gives them an edge over the U.S.
One week before the Vanderbilt Summit, Wray had warned Congress about the growing danger of Chinese hackers on U.S. telecommunications and infrastructure.
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In January, Wray admitted the Chinese have a huge advantage over U.S. intelligence agencies, because the amount of hackers China has vastly outpaces the number of FBI agents available to combat them.
"The PRC has a bigger hacking program than that of every major nation combined. In fact, if you took every single one of the FBI's cyber agents and intelligence analysts, and focused them exclusively on the China threat; China's hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1," Wray said.
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