HONOLULU (KHON2) — Federal authorities are investigating what they’re calling a “significant cyber espionage campaign,” by Chinese hackers known as Salt Typhoon in early November.
Cyber security experts believe the hackers were after metadata information.
“Which endpoint you’re communicating with, how frequently you’re communicating, the amount of data you’re transmitting, that type of metadata under certain circumstances can give away information about you,” stated Derek Gabriel, CEO of Ignite Solutions Group.
The group targeted at least eight major telecommunication companies including AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies, according to a joint statement from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
We have identified that PRC-affiliated actors have compromised networks at multiple telecommunications companies to enable the theft of customer call records data, the compromise of private communications of a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity, and the copying of certain information that was subject to U.S. law enforcement requests pursuant to court orders.
FBI & CISA
Experts said the average American should be worried about what could now happen to their personal data.
“It isn’t so much that today the text message you sent has been read. It’s that it’s been captured, heard. It’s in a system that we no longer have control over,” said Gabriel. “It could leak for other reasons. People could trade data. They do this on the Dark Web all the time. So, that data at some point could get to someone who could abuse it.”
The FBI urged Americans to use end-to-end encrypted software like Signal or WhatsApp to send texts or make calls.
“The way that these apps work is they sort of generate a key only the person that has access to the key that encrypted it can decrypt. It can’t be intercepted in transit. It would just look like gibberish if someone didn’t have access to it,” said Gabriel.
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Officials said the severity of the hack is not yet clear and continue the investigation.