Chairman John Moolenaar and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party have reached out to major telecom companies regarding a reported cyber breach. The two lawmakers sent a letter to the CEOs of Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies, companies reportedly affected by what is being called the Salt Typhoon breach.
News reports indicate that "a cyberattack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of U.S. broadband providers." This breach potentially accessed information from systems used for court-authorized network wiretapping requests by federal authorities. The alleged access may have persisted for months or longer.
In their communication, Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi expressed concerns over these developments. They highlighted previous discussions about similar threats, such as those posed by another group known as Volt Typhoon. “Taken together with these news reports regarding Salt Typhoon’s apparent compromise of our nation’s wiretap system,” they stated, “it is clear that we face a cyber-adversary the likes of which we have never confronted before, and we must urgently enhance our nation’s approach to cybersecurity.”
The letter requests a closed-door briefing from each company involved in order to gain further insights into this situation. The lawmakers specifically asked:
- When did your companies first become aware of matters described in the Wall Street Journal article?
- What specific measures are your companies taking to protect systems used for court-authorized network wiretapping requests?
- What additional actions can Congress and the federal government take to help protect against PRC state-sponsored hacking efforts?
This development has been covered in more detail in the Wall Street Journal.
