Also at the press conference on December 4, the White House representative said that these attacks "may have lasted for one to two years", but at the present time, they have found no evidence that confidential US government information has been compromised.

"We can't say for sure that the perpetrators have been removed from the system. We don't know the extent of what they did," said a senior official at CISA (the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency).

CISA and FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) officials have recommended that Americans switch to encrypted messaging apps to reduce the chances of hackers intercepting communications.

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The US accused the Salt Typhoon hacker group of being the culprit in attacking telecommunications networks in Southeast Asian countries. Photo: ToI

Last week, T-Mobile's chief security officer confirmed that the company's systems had been breached by a connected fixed-line service provider, but no other malicious activity on the network has been found to date.

The hacker group, which also goes by the names FamousSparrow, Earth Estries, Ghost Emperor, and UNC2286, has breached state entities and telecommunications companies across Southeast Asia since as early as 2019, according to BleepingComputer .

The US government held a closed-door meeting involving the FBI, the National Intelligence Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Security Council and CISA on the issue.

In addition, a subcommittee in the US Senate is also scheduled to hold a hearing related to the Salt Typhoon hacker group on December 11.

The biggest questions revolve around the scale, scope, and timing of how companies and governments can ensure user safety.

CISA representatives said they could not give a specific timeline to completely remove hackers from the US telecommunications network.

CISA and the FBI confirmed the attack in late October, following reports that Salt Typhoon had breached the networks of multiple telecommunications companies, including T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies.

Federal agencies later revealed that the attackers compromised the “private communications” of “a limited number” of US government officials, accessed recording platforms and stole law enforcement request data and customer call records.

While the timing of the breach of the telecommunications network remains unclear, a Wall Street Journal report said the hackers had access for “months or longer.”

This is believed to have allowed them to steal significant internet traffic from US business service providers and millions of their customers.

CISA has issued guidance to help system administrators and communications infrastructure engineers harden systems against Salt Typhoon attacks.

China called the allegations disinformation and said Beijing "firmly opposes and combats cyber attacks and cyber theft in all forms."

(Synthetic)

Notorious hacker still active and 'hunting' The hacker behind the campaign that affected 165 companies globally is still operating at scale and has recently found many new victims.