“We’re really dealing with a highly sophisticated nation-state threat actor that will do anything and everything at any price to get a foothold into our critical infrastructure.” — Nasrin Rezai, Chief Information Security Officer for Verizon¹.
The New Definition of National Defense
For generations, “national defense” has meant tanks, jets, and missiles. However, in the 21st century, a nation’s true power lies not only in its military weapons but in its ability to communicate. The modern battlefield extends deep into the cables, routers, and satellites that carry our voices, our orders, and our markets. When adversaries compromise those arteries, they don’t just steal data—they endanger millions of citizens, disrupt governance, and weaken the state’s ability to defend itself².
In 2024, cybersecurity researchers uncovered a sweeping espionage campaign dubbed “Salt Typhoon.” The U.S. government linked the operation to a state-sponsored group in China that had breached at least nine major U.S. telecommunications companies, gaining access to the control planes of networks used by federal agencies and critical industries³. Further analysis demonstrated that the attack was far wider than initially estimated and that as many as 80 global telecom companies had been compromised—including the mobile devices of President Trump and Vice President Vance⁴. Then, Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) described the attack as “the most disturbing and widespread incursion into our telecommunications systems in the history of the world.”⁴
Although we have been aware of the attack for well over a year, we still have not eradicated the invaders from our networks. They remain current in our nation’s telecommunication systems to this day, essentially “living off the land” ⁵.
What Needs to Be Done?
The implications of this attack are massive. The attacks provide foreign actors with access to sensitive information, enabling them to gather intelligence on government operations, defense strategies, and trade secrets². The compromised networks enable ongoing theft of intellectual property and sensitive data⁵. The persistent access gained can be used to prepare for future conflicts, giving attackers a strategic advantage³.
This is not a simple data theft or network reliability issue to be addressed by the FCC. It is an attack from a foreign government on our nation and needs to be understood as such. The telecommunications networks are just the vehicle of the attack (and not the only vehicle). This is a sustained infiltration into the infrastructure that carries 911 calls, military communications, and financial transactions⁵. This needs to be addressed as a matter of national defense.
The response from the telecommunications companies has been unprecedented. There have been—and continue to be—a series of high-level meetings, briefings, and exercises involving telecom companies of all sizes from around the world⁴. As impressive as these efforts are, the undeniable fact is that no private company, or group of companies, can fend off sophisticated attacks from a world power like China¹. As Verizon CISO Rezai noted, they will “do anything and everything at any price to get a foothold into our critical infrastructure.”¹
The government needs to engage, and not with its antiquated toolbox of regulations. Indeed, there is widespread bipartisan consensus that the existing set of overlapping and inconsistent cybersecurity regulations—generated with little or no evidence of their effectiveness, let alone cost-effectiveness—is actually part of the problem².
Not only do the current cybersecurity regulations waste scarce personnel and resources on redundant compliance obligations, but we now know that attackers will use them in the design of attacks to distract victims with a false front while launching the “real attack” in a different location³.
While regulations clearly serve valuable purposes in some instances, they are not the right tool to fend off nation-state cyber-attacks. For that, we need to move beyond the adversarial relationship that regulations create and build a true industry–government partnership in the interests of our national defense³.
Endnotes
- Rezai, N. Quoted in Politico coverage of cybersecurity threats to critical U.S. telecommunications infrastructure.
- Associated Press. (2024, November 10). Secret Service dismantles telecom threat around UN capable of crippling cell service in NYC.
- CSIS. (2024). Significant Cyber Incidents Database. Center for Strategic and International Studies.
- Politico. (2024, December 3). Chinese hack of global telecom providers is “ongoing,” officials warn.
- Reuters. (2024, May 30). Hundreds of thousands of U.S. internet routers destroyed in newly discovered 2023 hack.
- New York Post. (2024, February 29). New York AG Letitia James opens probe into AT&T wireless outage.
