NSA Investigating CCP-Backed Hack of Major US Telecommunications Companies

Air Force Lieutenant General Timothy Haugh testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 12, 2023. Alex Wong/Getty Images

National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh said the Chinese communist regime-backed hack on major American telecommunications companies is under investigation.

The hack was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 5.

Haugh told a small group of reporters on Oct. 6 at The Cipher Brief conference that details about the investigation could not yet be made public. According to The Wall Street Journal, hackers had access to several broadband providers, including AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Technologies, for months or longer, amounting to a major national security risk.

“We’re really at an initial stage,” he said, according to The Cipher Brief, noting that the intelligence agencies have seen that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is “going to be very aggressive” in targeting critical infrastructure.

During the conference, Haugh outlined the threat from the CCP.

“The scope and sophistication at which the [People’s Republic of China (PRC)] continues to grow its capabilities and extend its global reach is matched only by the sheer scale and speed of which it acts,” Haugh said. “It has enhanced its actions in cyberspace, where the PRC represents the most daunting of our threats.”

Lumen Technologies disclosed in a blog post in August that hackers took advantage of vulnerabilities in the Versa Director software platform. Four U.S. targets and one Indian firm were targeted, but the companies were not named at the time. Versa Networks confirmed three unnamed victims, including an internet service provider.

At the time, Lumen researchers said they were moderately confident that the hack was related to the CCP-backed, ongoing hacking campaign “Volt Typhoon” and that internet companies were targeted so that the regime could surveil the customers.

Haugh said he was “incredibly confident” in the United States’ ability to counter the CCP cyber threat because we value transparency.

When intelligence officials disclosed the Volt Typhoon threat last year, it had a ripple effect among lawmakers, the private sector, and even other countries, which took action to close vulnerabilities.

“We’ve now seen all of them be successful,” Haugh said. “That’s an exemplar of what we can be doing. ... We’ve done over 70 advisories about these threats and in many cases those advisories are at the keystroke level of what is an adversary doing, how are they doing it, and how can we counter it.”

CCP is Stifling Chinese Potential: Haugh

The CCP has strengths in areas such as scale and control-enabling technologies, but according to Haugh, its heavy-handed approach to expanding aggressively on foreign soil may now be a setback.

China currently faces several domestic crises caused by CCP policy: a collapsed real estate industry that had propped up the Chinese economy, evaporating foreign investment, and a shrinking workforce and population.

Now, global trade partners are putting up barriers, and the CCP will find it increasingly difficult to offset these domestic issues financially, Haugh said.

“Addressing these challenges will require innovative thinking by PRC leaders. However, the Chinese Communist Party’s tighter, authoritarian grip could very well stifle the ability of the PRC and will to navigate its most pressing challenges,” he said.

American principles of freedom of belief and private ownership give the United States a competitive advantage in countering the CCP, he said. These principles have given rise to diverse innovation and dynamic public-private partnerships.

The more the National Security Agency has shared about the CCP cyber threat with agencies and companies, the more these entities collaborate, Haugh said.

“Truly, the cyber domain is created by industry. And it is industry who will most directly impact our collective ability to defend U.S. interests and those of our allies,” he said. “The value that we place on freedom of thought allows us to innovate and partner quickly, contradicting the PRC’s mindset of centralized control.”

According to Haugh, collaboration is critical because the CCP, as an authoritarian entity, can leverage a whole-of-state approach to achieve its goals.

“The relationships we are building today allow us to achieve agility, scale, and capabilities that would not otherwise be available to us. It’s the competitive advantage our nation has over the PRC,” he said.