T-Mobile customers in the crosshairs. Chinese hackers eavesdropped on their conversations

The Wall Street Journal has just revealed information about a campaign of Chinese hackers who broke into the internal affairs of large telecommunications operators.

T-Mobile in the crosshairs

Hackers in the employ of the Chinese government have broken into the internal systems of many US and international telecommunications companies. One of them is T-Mobile.

Cybercriminals spied and eavesdropped on the conversations of high-ranking people of strategic importance and looked at the history of their calls and text messages. The entire operation lasted several months, although the WSJ did not report when exactly the attacks took place. A T-Mobile spokesman told Reuters:

T-Mobile is closely monitoring the series of cyberattacks that have occurred across the telecommunications industry. (…) At this point, no customer data has been leaked.

Just before this hacking campaign was revealed, the FBI and CISA watchdog reported that hackers with ties to the Chinese government intercepted surveillance data used by US law enforcement.

Earlier in October 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese hackers breached Verizon, AT&T and Lumen, obtaining information from government systems that store police wiretap recordings.

In the past, the Chinese government categorically denied the accusations of the American administration that hackers in their service were breaking into the IT networks of foreign countries.

It is not known to what extent international operators were affected and whether T-Mobile’s European branches were also targets of the attack.