A senior U.S. official told reporters on Wednesday that a huge amount of metadata was stolen from Americans as part of a larger cyberespionage operation by a Chinese hacker group known as Salt Typhoon. The official declined to provide specific figures, but noted that China's control over U.S. communications infrastructure is widespread and hacking attacks are still ongoing. "We believe a lot of metadata was stolen from Americans," the official told reporters on condition of not being named. Asked if this included data from every cell phone in the U.S., the official said, "We don't think every cell phone in the country, but we do think the Chinese government may be targeting a large number of people." 


The official said the hackers' attacks included companies around the world, including "at least" eight U.S. telecommunications and telecommunications infrastructure companies. U.S. officials have so far alleged that hackers targeted Verizon (VZ.N), Open in a new tab AT&T (T.N), Open in a new tab T-Mobile (TMUS.O) and Open in a new tab Lumen (LUMN.N). Open the new tab and the other tabs separately. T-Mobile said no customer data was leaked in this case, Opens a new tab, and Lumen said it has no evidence that customer data was accessed through its network, but in at least some other cases hackers have allegedly intercepted phone calls, tapped conversations, and stolen large chunks of call data.

Call data metadata is sometimes described as who made what calls, when, and where. It does not include the content of the calls, but may include who was on the phone, the duration of the calls, and where they were originating from. Even without the content, call data metadata can reveal highly detailed information about individuals' lives, work, and intimate relationships, especially if collected in bulk.

The reliable stated the White House had made tackling the Salt Typhoon hackers a concern for the federal authorities and that President Joe Biden were briefed numerous instances at the intrusions.

The press name came about as U.S. authorities businesses held a separate, categorised briefing for all senators on Salt Typhoon`s efforts to compromise American telecommunications companies.

The FBI, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, the National Security Council and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency had been a few of the contributors withinside the closed-door briefing, officers informed Reuters.