Important Takeaways:
- Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner says he’s stunned by the scope of China’s breach into the U.S. telecommunications system, which went further than was described by the Biden administration.
- “The barn door is still wide open, or mostly open,” the Virginia Democrat told The New York Times on Thursday. “We’ve not found everywhere they are.”
- The Chinese hackers, which Microsoft named Salt Typhoon, have been able to monitor Americans’ cell phone calls and texts, including those made by people such as President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.
- Warner, a former telecommunications executive, said that it can’t be concluded that the hackers are now blocked from the nation’s systems or whether investigators know how deep the breach reached.
- Chinese hackers have been a concern for two decades, but their recent activity has taken the problem to new levels, Warner said.
- “This is far and away the most serious telecom hack in our history,” Warner said. “This makes Colonial Pipeline and SolarWinds look like small potatoes,” he added, referring to Russia’s intrusions into U.S. security.
- He added that investigators must be allowed to continue their work to learn the extent of the hacking, and that the public must understand that the Chinese were targeting far more than just Washington targets.
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