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Title: Chinese Hacked US Telecom a Year Before Known Wireless Breaches

Link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/06/05/002324...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Corporate investigators
found evidence that Chinese hackers broke into an American telecommunications
company in the summer of 2023, indicating that Chinese attackers penetrated
the US communications system earlier than publicly known. Investigators
working for the telecommunications firm discovered last year that malware
used by Chinese state-backed hacking groups was on the company's systems for
seven months starting in the summer of 2023, according to two people familiar
with the matter and a document seen by Bloomberg News. The document, an
unclassified report sent to Western intelligence agencies, doesn't name the
company where the malware was found and the people familiar with the matter
declined to identify it. The 2023 intrusion at an American telecommunications
company, which hasn't been previously reported, came about a year before US
government officials and cybersecurity companies said they began spotting
clues that Chinese hackers had penetrated many of the country's largest phone
and wireless firms. The US government has blamed the later breaches on a
Chinese state-backed hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon. It's unclear if the
2023 hack is related to that foreign espionage campaign and, if so, to what
degree. Nonetheless, it raises questions about when Chinese intruders
established a foothold in the American communications industry. "We've known
for a long time that this infrastructure has been vulnerable and was likely
subject to attack," said Marc Rogers, a cybersecurity and telecommunications
expert. "What this shows us is that it was attacked, and that going as far
back as 2023, the Chinese were compromising our telecom companies."
Investigators linked the sophisticated rootkit malware Demodex to China's
Ministry of State Security, noting it enabled deep, stealthy access to
systems and remained undetected on a U.S. defense-linked company's network
until early 2024. A Chinese government spokesperson denied responsibility for
cyberattacks and accused the U.S. and its allies of spreading disinformation
and conducting cyber operations against China.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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