China has hacked the emails used by congressional staff on powerful committees in the US House of Representatives, as part of a massive cyber espionage campaign known as Salt Typhoon. Chinese intelligence accessed email systems used by some staffers on the House China committee in addition to aides on the foreign affairs committee, intelligence committee and armed services committee, according to people familiar with the attack. The intrusions were detected in December. The attacks are the latest element of an ongoing cyber campaign against US communication networks by the Ministry of State Security, China’s intelligence service.
US telecom groups have done little to protect themselves from Salt Typhoon because of the huge cost involved in making networks resilient. Warner in December said US networks were particularly vulnerable because they were built when cyber security was not a serious concern. The US Treasury planned to impose sanctions on MSS entities over Salt Typhoon in December, but it reversed course following concerns that it would derail the détente Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping reached in October.
