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Chinese spies broke into America’s phone networks and listened to calls from top government leaders.
The breach, which has been called the “worst telecom hack in U.S. history,” is forcing officials to rethink how they secure communications. It has also reignited the encryption debate, with experts calling for fully embracing end-to-end encryption (E2EE).
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) now wants officials to stop using regular phone calls and texts. Instead, they should use apps like Signal or iMessage, which uses E2EE. This method allows messages to be read only by the sender and receiver. CISA detailed this on a 5-page mobile communication guide document released this week.
This move comes after the Salt Typhoon attack, reported in December 2024. Hackers accessed phone records and messages of about 150 high-ranking officials. Such targets include President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris’s staff members. The breach also affects major phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, with hackers still accessing these networks.
John Ackerly, a former tech advisor in the George W. Bush White House, says this breach should finally end the long-running debate about encryption. “The debate over end-to-end encryption is done and dusted,” Ackerly told The Register. “It’s over substantively, and as a country, we should be embracing encryption without backdoors.”
Ackerly, who now runs the data encryption company Virtru, said the Salt Typhoon attack goes far beyond previous hacks that targeted individual companies. “This is orders of magnitude more devastating than any single hack to a particular company,” he explained. Salt Typhoon attackers could access ‘every company across the country and every American,’ Ackerly added.
The government’s position has shifted dramatically. Jeff Greene, a top CISA official, now says plainly: “Encryption is your friend.” In the past, government agencies often pushed against strong encryption. They wanted backdoors for law enforcement during events of terrorism or crime.
To prevent future attacks, Senator Ron Wyden proposed a new law called the Secure American Communications Act. This would require phone companies to meet strict security standards. Ackerly agrees with this plan, saying Congress needs to force phone companies to take security seriously since they’ve been “asleep at the wheel.”
The hackers got into the phone systems by exploiting old equipment that needed replacing. “This is massive, and we have a particularly vulnerable system,” said Senator Mark Warner, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee. He added that fixing the problem would require replacing thousands of pieces of equipment across the country.
“What we have to fight against is complacency and bad policy,” Ackerly concluded. “Keep a Klieg light on this until there’s a better answer than just: The Chinese are still there, I don’t know what to do.”
