House Commerce Leads Seek Briefing on Chinese-Backed Hacks of AT&T, Lumen & Verizon
House Commerce Committee leaders are pressing AT&T, Lumen and Verizon for answers on Chinese government-affiliated hackers’ breach of their networks. Reports indicate the breach focused on intelligence collection and may have accessed U.S. government wiretapping requests. “These types of breaches…
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are increasing in frequency and severity, and there is a growing concern regarding the cybersecurity vulnerabilities embedded in U.S. telecommunications networks,” said House Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.; ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J.; and Communications Subcommittee leaders in letters to Lumen CEO Kate Johnson, AT&T CEO John Stankey and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg released Friday. House Commerce “needs to understand better how this incident occurred and what steps your company is taking to prevent future service disruptions and secure your customers’ data.” The panel leaders want the CEOs to provide a briefing by Oct. 18 covering when they detected the breach, how they addressed network vulnerabilities and details on information the hackers may have accessed. “In an age where Americans rely heavily on your services for communication and connectivity, the integrity of your networks is paramount,” the lawmakers said: “It is vital that cybersecurity protocols are enhanced to better protect American’s data against increasingly sophisticated attacks especially from our foreign adversaries.” AT&T, Lumen and Verizon didn’t comment.