August 27, 2024 – 9:54 PM
Hackers backed by the Chinese government have been deeply entrenched in the systems of U.S. internet service providers in recent months to obtain data about their users, The Washington Post reported.
The targets of the unusually aggressive and sophisticated attacks were at least two large service providers with millions of customers, but they also gained access to customer data from several smaller providers, people familiar with the matter said.
“This type of situation is common from China, but this is worse than before,” Brandon Wells, who was director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) until earlier this month, told the newspaper.
While it has yet to be proven that the purpose of the intrusions was anything other than intelligence gathering, the techniques used are reminiscent of those used by Chinese-backed hackers last year when they tried to access infrastructure at Pacific ports. At the time, China wanted to create confusion and prevent U.S. troop and weapons shipments to Taiwan in the event of a conflict.
