AT&T and Verizon Declare Their Networks Secure Amid Salt Typhoon Cyberattack

Three months after reports surfaced about a cyberattack, called Salt Typhoon, targeting internet service providers and US wiretapping infrastructure, two of the largest telecom companies say they’ve made progress securing their networks against the threat.

AT&T and Verizon each released statements over the weekend addressing Salt Typhoon for the first time since working with federal law enforcement and other entities. AT&T said in its statement that, based on its investigation, China was targeting a “small number of individuals of foreign intelligence interest” and that the company is working to protect customer data.

Verizon, meanwhile, said it has “contained the cyber incident brought on by this nation-state threat actor” and that it has “not detected threat actor activity” in its network for some time. It added that a third-party security firm has confirmed the containment. 

In late September and early October, reports first described the Salt Typhoon attacks, which led the FBI to warn that some types of messaging, such as RCS texting between iOS and Android phones, may be at risk.

It now appears that Salt Typhoon has been a more targeted attack than was earlier believed, even though hundreds of millions of the companies’ customers could have had their data and personal information at risk.

“In this incident, a small number of high-profile customers in government and politics were specifically targeted by the threat actor,” Verizon said in its statement. “Those customers have been notified of the activity.”

Both Verizon and AT&T noted that they partnered with government and law enforcement agencies, telecommunications industry partners and private cybersecurity firms

“In the relatively few instances in which an individual’s information was impacted, we have complied with our notification obligations,” AT&T said.

Over the weekend, a ninth company affected by the hacking was said to be identified, but the White House did not release the name of the company. T-Mobile and Lumen were believed to be on that list of companies, but other names have not been released.