Information
Specialists warn that the hacker group linked to the Chinese language state might stay lively in US networks
Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell mentioned on Tuesday that each AT&T and Verizon had refused handy over key safety paperwork associated to the Salt Hurricane cyberattack in 2024.
In a letter to Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, Cantwell mentioned the telecoms giants will not be being clear concerning the safety of their networks and referred to as on their CEOs to attend a Committee listening to.
“For months, I’ve sought particular documentation from AT&T and Verizon that will purportedly corroborate their claims that their networks at the moment are safe from this assault,” wrote Cantwell. “Sadly, each AT&T and Verizon have chosen to not cooperate, which raises critical questions concerning the extent to which Individuals who use these networks stay uncovered to unacceptable threat.”
The paperwork in query relate to the extremely publicised cybersecurity breach of quite a few telecoms corporations by China-linked hacking group Salt Hurricane in 2024.
The assault compromised the metadata of calls and textual content messages from hundreds of thousands of shoppers, notably together with these of politicians equivalent to Donald Trump and JD Vance. It additionally gave the hackers entry to company-run regulation enforcement wiretapping techniques.
By December 2024, AT&T mentioned it had “no exercise by nation-state actors in our networks”, whereas Verizon mentioned it had “contained the actions related to this specific incident”.
In June 2025, nevertheless, Cantwell wrote to AT&T and Verizon to demand solutions, saying that consultants feared Salt Hurricane was nonetheless working inside the corporations’ networks.
“Present and former authorities consultants proceed to point that Salt Hurricane might stay lively in U.S. networks,” she wrote in a letter to AT&T CEO John Stankey and Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg (changed by Dan Schulman in October 2025).
This declare was reiterated in her letter to Cruz this week.
“Knowledgeable witnesses warned this Committee concerning the ongoing safety dangers posed by Salt Hurricane, whereas experiences point out that Salt Hurricane hackers are probably nonetheless inside U.S. telecommunications networks and should have even breached e-mail accounts utilized by congressional employees,” she wrote.
Critiques of the Salt Hurricane breach for each AT&T and Verizon have been carried out by Google-owned cybersecurity enterprise Mandiant. Now, Cantwell says Mandiant is refusing to share their findings, following orders from the cellular operators.
“AT&T and Verizon apparently intervened to dam Mandiant from cooperating with my requests,” mentioned Cantwell in her letter.
Verizon, AT&T, nor Mandiant have publicly commented on the allegations.
Cantwell is now urging the Senate Committee to convene a listening to through which the AT&T and Verizon CEOs can testify concerning the incident publicly.
“The American public deserves transparency and certainty that our nation’s main telecommunications networks will not be presently uncovered to unacceptable dangers,” Cantwell wrote. “This oversight listening to could be a chance to offer exactly that.”
Salt Hurricane stays a significant risk to Western corporations worldwide. Final 12 months, an FBI report mentioned that the hacker group had focused over 600 organisations in over 80 nations.
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