China Hacked Email Systems of US Congressional Committee Staff

China has hacked the emails used by congressional staff on powerful committees in the US House of Representatives, as part of a massive cyber espionage campaign known as Salt Typhoon. An anonymous reader shares a report: Chinese intelligence accessed email systems used by some staffers [non-paywalled source] on the House China committee in addition to aides on the foreign affairs committee, intelligence committee and armed services committee, according to people familiar with the attack. The intrusions were detected in December.

The attacks are the latest element of an ongoing cyber campaign against US communication networks by the Ministry of State Security, China's intelligence service. One person familiar with the attack said it was unclear if the MSS had accessed lawmakers' emails. The MSS has been operating Salt Typhoon for several years. It allows China to access the unencrypted phone calls, texts and voicemails of almost every American, and in some cases enables access to email accounts. Salt Typhoon has also intercepted the calls of senior US officials over the past couple of years, said people familiar with the campaign.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.