MITCHELL, S.D. (MITCHELLNOW) Multiple government agencies are sounding alarms due to concerns that Chinese spies have figured out how to snoop on Americans after hacking into major phone carriers.
Officials representing the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are advising Americans to stop sending unencrypted text messages due to a Chinese hacking operation dubbed “Salt Typhoon” they say managed to infiltrate major wireless providers including Verizon and AT&T.
The agencies say they’re still investigating the extent of the hack, which seemingly allowed the bad guys who orchestrated it to access metadata to track interactions between certain numbers, listen in on some calls, and, most alarmingly, obtain potentially classified files concerning communications logs maintained by law enforcement agencies who’ve obtained warrants to track conversations.
The agencies are subsequently advising Americans to harness services that feature end-to-end encryption, which includes platforms like Signal and WhatsApp.
iPhone and Android users also don’t really have to worry when you consider iMessage and Google Message automatically encrypt texts and phone calls, although that only applies when the person you’re communicating with is using the same service (RCS and SMS texts are still vulnerable).