The campaigns for Vice President Kamala Harris and President-elect Donald Trump have been targeted by foreign hackers. Campaign staffers may have had their iPhones exploited, a cybersecurity provider finds. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
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TThe FBI is investigating whether China used its access to US telecommunications networks to infect the iPhones of senior US presidential campaign staff, according to a cybersecurity expert involved in protecting officials’ devices.
Rocky Cole, founder of mobile security startup iVerify, said Forbes His company’s software showed abnormal behavior on two iPhones belonging to senior officials for one of the presidential campaigns. He declined to specify which one.
Cole, a former NSA analyst and Google employee, said the discovered iVerify settings on staff iPhones were changed “in patterns not seen on healthy devices.” Previously, mobile malware developed by government hacking groups have changed settings in the same way, he said. “This does not mean the devices were definitively compromised, but this information combined with who owned the devices and the timeline of events was sufficient to warrant a robust investigation, which is ongoing,” Cole said. Forbes.
“The Trump administration will have to hit the ground running to counter the recent surge in cyber activity.”
The FBI confirmed to Cole that one of the affected iPhones belonged to a target of a Chinese cyber espionage group referred to as Salt Typhoon, he said. According to reports in Wall Street Journal, a number of telecommunications giants, including AT&T and Verizon, had their networks breached by Salt Typhoon, an entity believed to be working on behalf of China’s state security service. The newspaper cited various sources with knowledge of the matter who claimed that the attackers targeted the communications of President Trump, his running mate JD Vance and individuals working on the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris. Neither the Harris nor Trump campaigns responded to requests for comment.
“The timing of the anomalous behavior was consistent with Salt Typhoon’s behavior within the Verizon network,” Cole said. “We have to assume that China will do more with its position on Verizon’s infrastructure than just listen in on phone calls. It is an attractive position for deeper utilization of networks and adjacent devices. Therefore, there is an ongoing investigation to determine if those devices were actually breached. His company was tasked with protecting officials’ iPhones through its work with the nonpartisan nonprofit Defending Digital Campaigns, which provides candidates and staffers with access to free cybersecurity tools.
If the FBI found out that a candidate or one of their staff had their iPhone hacked, it would be a significant breach. Infecting a smartphone allows wider access to information on a target than would be compromised through telecommunications networks. Such malware would potentially have access to the phone’s microphone, phone calls and text messages, encrypted communications, such as messages sent via WhatsApp and Signal, and more private information stored in health and dating apps, such as and detailed location information.
Apple declined to comment. Neither the FBI nor Verizon responded to requests for comment.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC, denied being behind any attack on the US and had “no targets and will not interfere in US elections,” adding, “In recent years, the US has compiled and spread all kinds of disinformation about so-called Chinese hacking threats. Such accusations are full of malicious speculation against China, which China strongly opposes.”
US officials and cyber experts believe China is a major cyber threat facing the US Chris Krebs, former head of the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said China should be a top priority for the incoming Trump administration. In November 2020, Trump fired Krebs on Twitter after the former CISA head declared that year’s election legitimate and safe from outside influence.
“Given China’s increasingly aggressive behavior in multiple areas, the Trump administration will have to hit the ground running to counter the recent surge in cyber activity,” Krebs said. “They will also have to continue evaluating offensive cyber options… The stakes are clear: China is preparing for war, right?”