Well, this is what spies do, right? We do it, they do it. We all use the latest technology of the day to do it and we all try to prevent the other.

That the outcome of such efforts is published by the government impacted is interesting but that begs the question of what the actual goal of releasing the information is, right? That's the interesting bit here.

It should be the final nail in the coffin of Huawei's international telecoms business.

Ignoring the geopolitical implications of your comment.

They used unpatched exploits in EOL network gear made by linksys that were several years past their expiration date to get into this system and then moved laterally. The root cause is a lack of investment in backbone security.

I would like the actual problem be fixed instead of a scapegoat this time.

A bit one-sided since this event also shows how filled with backdoors American telecom equipment is, no? To the point an adversary used them, other nations should be afraid of their American equipment also getting compromised.

I personally don't see how these actions are logically correlated, and moreover, I don't think it does anything to harden US critical infrastructure to beat the Huawei dead horse again.

The primary concern should be the fact that we've built infrastructure that is easily eavesdropped on by foreign adversaries. Heck, assuming these users weren't on DSN, we already have a solution: DSN. We also have mobile solutions, like asking politically vulnerable people to use Signal, or developing secure technology for these users to use.

I find your comment ridiculous. Yes there are other risks too but the idea that there is no risk to allowing your primary geo-strategic competitor to embed their own hardware in your telecommunications chain is just plain silly.

So silly in fact, I'm wondering what your motivations are.

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About as silly as buying all your telecom equipment in competitor country’s manufacturing chain and expecting it to come not having something embedded

Letting the adversary know that you know can be a useful move.

> Letting the adversary know that you know can be a useful move.

Taking into account the latest wave of hardcoded passwords in Cisco, Fortinet and Palo Alto, i don't think that was the intention.

What do you want to bet that this was made possible by the CCP hardware backdoors that SuperMicro has been bugging their motherboards with?

https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/12/supermicro_bloomberg_...

I think it's easier to explain breaches with 0-day exploits than backdoors.

Put any hardware in front of the best hacking teams, in their lab, and they WILL find a way in.

This was never proven if memory serves me.

Look at how many allegations are swirling around that company. They're accused of violating sanctions on GPUs to Russia and China too. Seems like a pattern IMO.

When does known espionage and hacking of nation's telecoms become an act of war?

When the state wants to go to war already and is looking for a justification.

Welp, not when the oligarch ruling classes on each side estimate they won't earn more from war than keeping the peace and continue being fed by their own people.

> Salt Typhoon also compromised wiretapping systems used by law enforcement – although that wasn't the focus of the spying intrusions...

Not too hard to pick up on the Vulture's underlining here: when the need for sovereign surveillance interferes with the need for foreign security

I'm disappointed, but not really surprised that top American officials are having important conversations over unencrypted channels.