T-Mobile Linked to Chinese Cyberattacks on Telecom Networks

T-Mobile has been implicated in a sweeping cyberattack campaign targeting U.S. and international telecom and internet companies, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. This campaign, allegedly orchestrated by Chinese government-affiliated hackers known as “Salt Typhoon,” has also impacted other major players like AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Technologies (formerly CenturyLink).

In a statement, T-Mobile confirmed it is “closely monitoring this industry-wide attack” and assured that its systems and data remain largely unaffected. The company added there is “no evidence” of customer information being compromised. However, T-Mobile did not confirm whether it has the technical capacity, such as logs, to fully assess if customer data was accessed. A spokesperson for the company declined to dispute the Journal’s findings but did not provide further clarity.

The hackers reportedly targeted wiretap systems used by telecom companies to comply with federal regulations allowing government access to customer data. This attack is part of a broader cyber-espionage campaign aimed at extracting call records and text messages, particularly those of high-ranking U.S. officials and presidential candidates.

The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have issued a public warning about China’s “broad and significant cyber espionage campaign,” urging the telecom industry to bolster its defences.

This marks the ninth significant breach involving T-Mobile in recent years. In 2023, the company suffered a major attack that exposed the personal data of 37 million customers. While T-Mobile claims minimal impact from this latest incident, the company’s repeated targeting underscores the vulnerabilities within the telecom sector amid escalating cyber threats.