Information
Consultants warn that the hacker group linked to the Chinese language state might stay energetic in US networks
Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell stated on Tuesday that each AT&T and Verizon had refused at hand over key safety paperwork associated to the Salt Hurricane cyberattack in 2024.
In a letter to Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, Cantwell stated the telecoms giants are usually not being clear concerning the safety of their networks and referred to as on their CEOs to attend a Committee listening to.
“For months, I’ve sought particular documentation from AT&T and Verizon that will purportedly corroborate their claims that their networks are actually safe from this assault,” wrote Cantwell. “Sadly, each AT&T and Verizon have chosen to not cooperate, which raises critical questions concerning the extent to which Individuals who use these networks stay uncovered to unacceptable threat.”
The paperwork in query relate to the extremely publicised cybersecurity breach of quite a few telecoms corporations by China-linked hacking group Salt Hurricane in 2024.
The assault compromised the metadata of calls and textual content messages from thousands and thousands of consumers, notably together with these of politicians resembling Donald Trump and JD Vance. It additionally gave the hackers entry to company-run regulation enforcement wiretapping techniques.
By December 2024, AT&T stated it had “no exercise by nation-state actors in our networks”, whereas Verizon stated it had “contained the actions related to this explicit incident”.
In June 2025, nonetheless, Cantwell wrote to AT&T and Verizon to demand solutions, saying that specialists feared Salt Hurricane was nonetheless working inside the corporations’ networks.
“Present and former authorities specialists proceed to point that Salt Hurricane might stay energetic in U.S. networks,” she wrote in a letter to AT&T CEO John Stankey and Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg (changed by Dan Schulman in October 2025).
This declare was reiterated in her letter to Cruz this week.
“Skilled witnesses warned this Committee concerning the ongoing safety dangers posed by Salt Hurricane, whereas reviews point out that Salt Hurricane hackers are seemingly nonetheless inside U.S. telecommunications networks and should have even breached e mail accounts utilized by congressional employees,” she wrote.
Opinions of the Salt Hurricane breach for each AT&T and Verizon have been carried out by Google-owned cybersecurity enterprise Mandiant. Now, Cantwell says Mandiant is refusing to share their findings, following orders from the cell operators.
“AT&T and Verizon apparently intervened to dam Mandiant from cooperating with my requests,” stated Cantwell in her letter.
Verizon, AT&T, nor Mandiant have publicly commented on the allegations.
Cantwell is now urging the Senate Committee to convene a listening to through which the AT&T and Verizon CEOs can testify concerning the incident publicly.
“The American public deserves transparency and certainty that our nation’s main telecommunications networks are usually not at the moment uncovered to unacceptable dangers,” Cantwell wrote. “This oversight listening to can be a possibility to supply exactly that.”
Salt Hurricane stays a serious risk to Western corporations worldwide. Final yr, an FBI report stated that the hacker group had focused over 600 organisations in over 80 nations.
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