Corporate investigators found evidence that Chinese hackers bro
ke into an American telecommunications company in the summer of 2023, indicating the country’s attackers
penetrated the US communications system earlier than publicly known.
Investigators working for the telecommunications firm discovered last year that malware used by Chinese sta
te-backed hacking groups was on the company’s systems for seven months starting in the summer of 2
023, according to two people familiar with the matter and a document seen by Bloomberg News. The docume
nt, 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 repo
rted, came about a year before US government officials and cybersecurity companies sai
d 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 grou
p dubbed Salt Typhoon.
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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 atta
ck,” said Marc Rogers, a cybersecurity and telecommunication
s 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.”
A representative of the Chinese government embassy in Washington emphasized in a statement the difficulty of determining the origins of hacks, and said the US and its allies have been responsible for cyberattacks on China. “The relevant party needs to stop using cybersecurity to smear and slander China, and stop spreading all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats,” said spokesperson Liu Pengyu.