The Chinese cyber-attack that could have stolen data from every American

可能窃取每位美国人数据的网络攻击事件

The Global Story

2026-04-17

27 分钟
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In 2024, reports emerged of a highly sophisticated cyber espionage campaign against US telecoms companies, which some analysts believe went all the way up to the Chinese government. The group behind this campaign would later be codenamed Salt Typhoon, and it is believed to have quietly infiltrated critical US telecoms infrastructure in order to collect private information on influential Americans – including presidential candidates. In the process, it may have also swept up data from millions of ordinary Americans. The Chinese government has denied responsibility for Salt Typhoon. We speak to former Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger, who was working inside the White House when the attacks were first uncovered. We also speak to BBC cyber correspondent Joe Tidy about how this hack unfolded – and what it reveals about who may be winning the cyber war. Producer: Aron Keller Sound engineer: Travis Evans Executive producer: James Shield Senior news editor: China Collins (Photo: Analysts in the Security Operations Center at the Dell Secure Works office in South Carolina, US. Credit: Stephen Morton/Getty Images)
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  • Imagine you're an up-and-coming politician in the United States.

  • Your career is just getting underway.

  • You don't know it yet.

  • But in 2036, you'll be nominated to run for president.

  • Except sitting on the servers of a foreign power right now are some compromising messages you sent in 2022.

  • And they're just waiting to come back to bite you when you make it big.

  • This is a scenario that some intelligence agencies fear may be coming our way after a giant Chinese intelligence hack of data

  • carried out by a group known as Salt Typhoon was uncovered.

  • The Chinese government has denied responsibility for Salt Typhoon, but it 's believed to have targeted Donald Trump,

  • the Vice President J.D. Vance, but also potentially every living American citizen and people from around the world too.

  • Today on the show, we speak with a former high-ranking official from the Biden administration who tells us that years

  • from now, even encrypted data could become available to anyone.

  • Provided they have a powerful enough computer.

  • From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redmond in London.

  • And today on The Global Story, how did a huge hack go unnoticed for so long?

  • And what does it say about who's winning the global cyber war?

  • To understand the scale of the Salt Typhoon hack, we turn to someone who was right in the thick of it.

  • Asma has been speaking with Anne Neuberger, a former Deputy National Security Advisor under Joe Biden.

  • Neuberger was in charge of cybersecurity in the previous White House.

  • Asma started by asking her how she found out about this massive data breach.