(Bloomberg) -- US telecommunications companies are still working to kick out state-sponsored Chinese hackers who breached their networks as part of a spying campaign that dates back months, US officials said Tuesday.
The hacking group, known as Salt Typhoon, has compromised multiple telecoms, collecting intelligence and targeting the phone belonging to President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance, among others. The attackers also spied on communications belonging to what the FBI has said is a “limited number” of people in government and politics.
The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday issued guidance to organizations in the communications sector to help toughen their security.
“I think it would be impossible for us to predict a time frame on when we’ll have full eviction,” said Jeff Greene, executive assistant director for cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency, the government’s cyber agency.
“We’re still figuring out just how deeply and where they’ve penetrated so until we have a complete picture, it’s hard to know the exact parameters of how to kick them off,” he said.
Agencies in Canada, Australia and New Zealand also released guidance recommending actions for network engineers and others working in communications infrastructure to be able to identify possible Salt Typhoon intrusions.
The FBI began investigating the activity earlier this year, noting that the hackers had stolen large amounts of records of data regarding when, where and who individuals were communicating with. Officials said the hackers also copied information related to law enforcement requests and court orders.
“Each victim is unique, these are not cookie cutter compromises in terms of how deeply compromised a victim might be or what the actor has been able to do,” said Greene.
Greene said the hackers were paying attention to what was being published in the US, either by the government or by the media, regarding the hacking campaign, and were changing their tactics accordingly.
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