13. Salt Typhoon telecom attacks
When: 2024 and still ongoing
What happened?
China’s Salt Typhoon cyber espionage campaign has hit over nine major telecoms companies, prompting one expert to characterise it as one of the most damaging series of cyberattacks ever undertaken against the US.
Who nominated it, and why?
The campaign grabbed the attention of Quorum Cyber CEO/Chief Threat Officer pairing Federico Charosky and Paul Caiazzo.
While Salt Typhoon garnered more headlines in 2024 than it yet has in 2025, the Chinese nation-state affiliated group’s attacks against major telecoms providers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile are still ongoing today – the latest being ViaSat, they explained.
“The apparent espionage motivation and the level of access these attacks have provided the adversary could have extremely far-reaching impacts across the domains of geopolitics and global trade, and will only be fully appreciated with the fullness of time,” they said.
Channel takeaway:
This attack has clear implications for cybersecurity providers seeking to keep their customers safe from harm, Charosky and Caiazzo said.
“These attacks largely targeted unpatched vulnerabilities in network infrastructure including firewalls and VPNs – the very tools organisations use to protect themselves – reinforcing the criticality of intelligence-led vulnerability prioritisation,” they said.
12 cyber-attacks were considered more significant by our leadership panel. See next page for more…
