The US government says telecommunications companies were to blame for the recent Salt Typhoon hack, which compromised the phones and data of high-profile individuals including President-elect Donald Trump and Vice-President elect JD Vance. According to Anne Neuberger, Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technology at the White House, telecoms failed to implement basic security measures across their IT infrastructure.
Neuberger stated that the Biden administration is working with telecom companies to improve cybersecurity by sharing threat-hunting guides and instructions for hardening systems. The guides have helped identify a new victim, bringing the total of affected companies to nine. However, Neuberger warned that the risk of further breaches remains high until cybersecurity gaps are fully addressed.
Experts say that without proper security measures in place, networks are vulnerable to attacks from well-resourced and capable hackers like those believed to be state-affiliated actors from China. The White House is urging telecom companies to improve their cybersecurity by focusing on areas such as configuration management, vulnerability management, network segmentation, and sector-wide information sharing.
The Biden administration supports new regulations pushed by the Federal Communications Commission that would force telecoms to further harden their networks. These rules are similar to those in Australia and the UK, which have been in place since 2018 and 2022, respectively. Neuberger believes that these regulations would have contained the hack more quickly and prevented its spread.
The White House says the breach has compromised fewer than 100 individuals directly, but the attackers were interested in a large number of people in the Washington D.C. area, targeting their phones and data for follow-on espionage and intelligence collection. The hackers targeted President-elect Trump and Vice-President elect Vance among others, highlighting the vulnerability of high-profile targets.
In summary, the White House attributes the Salt Typhoon hack to telecoms’ lack of basic security measures and is urging companies to improve their cybersecurity to prevent future breaches.
Source: https://cyberscoop.com/salt-typhoon-telecom-cybersecurity-gaps-white-house-response