Chinese telecom breaches won’t sway election outcomes, CISA chief says

The recent Chinese infiltration into U.S. telecom networks and affiliated wiretap infrastructure that targeted people closely tied with major presidential candidates’ campaigns is not expected to tip the scales of tomorrow’s election, a top cybersecurity official said Monday.

The hackers, dubbed Salt Typhoon by cybersecurity researchers, have attempted to access the phone communications of presidential campaign officials and their staff. Audio from both the Republican and Democratic campaigns have been picked up in the espionage process, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

CISA Director Jen Easterly dismissed the idea that any materials accessed by the collective could sway tomorrow’s election.

“We are working with our FBI partners on the investigation related to the Salt Typhoon activity," she said in a Monday news conference. "At this point in time, we have no reason to believe that that activity will have any material impact on the outcome of the presidential election.” 

The network of affected individuals in the hack has expanded since U.S. investigators began scrutinizing the incident, which was first reported about a month ago. The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed the Cyber Safety Review Board will lead an investigation into the infiltration, triggered by the creation of a Unified Coordination Group that’s conducting a full-scale government response to the breaches.

Around 10 telecommunications firms — including Verizon, AT&T and Lumen — are believed to have been targeted.

“At this point, there’s probably more that we don’t know than we do. It’s unclear what the access vector was, the scope of the intrusion was and how many victims are involved,” said Neal Higgins, a former deputy White House national cyber director who’s now a partner at law firm Eversheds Sutherland. “The fact that a Unified Coordination Group has been convened … tells you that the administration is taking it seriously.”

Some 77 million Americans have already voted as of Monday, Easterly said. With the presidential election slated for tomorrow, officials are staying hyper vigilant for more attempts from foreign adversaries to meddle in the electoral process. 

As of now, the top U.S. cyber defense agency has seen “no evidence of activity that has the potential to materially impact the outcome of the presidential election,” she said.

Sham content related to the election has spread across platforms over the past day. CBS News denounced a phony post purporting to show a report from the news agency that said terrorist threats are at an all-time high and that Americans should be cautious when they go out to vote. CNN also condemned an image that depicts a graphic on its television channel displaying fake polling results.

Foreign influence attempts against the U.S. election have accelerated in recent weeks and months, conducted by Russia, Iran and China — the latter two of which have successfully compromised tangible confidential data or communications of the two major campaigns that are largely deadlocked in national polls.

Russia was responsible for creating a video purporting to show a person from Haiti claiming to have fraudulently voted several times in counties around Georgia, CISA and the U.S. intelligence community said last week. Another video accusing a person tied to Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign of taking a bribe from a U.S. entertainer was also manufactured by Kremlin spin doctors.

“We know that our foreign adversaries are intent on spreading this disinformation to influence Americans to undermine the legitimacy of our elections, and we shouldn’t be doing the work of our adversaries for them,” Easterly said.