Chinese hackers have targeted phones used by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, US media reported on Friday.
The hacking effort appears to be part of a broad-scale intelligence gathering effort by Chinese hackers, The New York Times said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The newspaper said it involved intrusion into Verizon phone systems and that investigators were trying to determine whether any communications data was taken.
The campaigns of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz were also targeted, a person familiar with the matter said.
Verizon spokesman Rich Young told AFP: “We are aware that a highly sophisticated nation-state actor has allegedly targeted multiple US telecommunications providers to gather intelligence.”
The Times said the Trump campaign was informed this week that the former president and Vance were among several people inside and outside the government whose phone numbers were targeted.
The newspaper said Western cyber security experts believe the hacking was carried out by a Chinese group called “Salt Typhoon”.
The hacking campaign is believed to have compromised the phones of two Trump-Vance campaign staffers, the Washington Post said.
The FBI declined to comment on reports that Trump and Vance’s phones were targeted.
But the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a joint statement that “the U.S. government is investigating unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.”
He said, “After the FBI identified specific malicious activity targeting the region, the FBI and (CISA) immediately notified the affected companies, provided technical assistance, and rapidly shared information to assist other potential victims. of.”
“U.S. government agencies are collaborating to aggressively mitigate this threat and are coordinating with our industry partners to strengthen cybersecurity across the commercial communications sector,” he said.
The United States last month accused three Iranians of involvement in a hacking effort targeting the Trump campaign.
In 2016, a hack of the Democratic National Committee’s emails – which was blamed on the Russians – exposed the party’s internal communications, including those of candidate Hillary Clinton.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
