U.S. telecommunications big Ribbon has confirmed that government-backed hackers had entry to its community for nearly a yr earlier than getting caught, in response to a public submitting.
The telco big mentioned in a 10-Q disclosure final week with the U.S. Securities and Change Fee {that a} suspected “nation-state actor had gained entry to the corporate’s IT community” as early as December 2024. Ribbon mentioned it notified regulation enforcement and that it believes the hackers are not in its community.
The Texas-headquartered Ribbon supplies cellphone, networking, and web providers for corporations, enterprises, and significant infrastructure organizations, similar to power and transportation programs. The corporate counts tons of of corporations as prospects, together with Fortune 500 corporations and authorities businesses, such because the Division of Protection.
Reuters, which first reported news of the breach, mentioned three of Ribbon’s prospects are identified to be affected, however the corporations weren’t named.
It’s not clear if the hackers exfiltrated personally identifiable data belonging to any people or different delicate knowledge from its company prospects within the breach, however the firm famous within the submitting that “a number of buyer information saved exterior of the primary community on two laptops do seem to have been accessed by the menace actor.” Ribbon mentioned it notified the affected prospects.
Ribbon is the newest in a sequence of telecommunication suppliers to have been hacked over the previous two years, although the corporate didn’t instantly say which authorities it believes is behind the intrusions.
Catherine Berthier, a spokesperson for Ribbon, didn’t return TechCrunch’s request for remark.
Chinese language-backed hackers have beforehand focused and compromised no less than 200 U.S.-based corporations, together with cellphone and web suppliers, in an effort to steal cellphone data and calling knowledge about senior U.S. authorities officers. A number of telcos, together with AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen, have been confirmed hacked as a part of the marketing campaign, together with cloud giants and datacenter suppliers.
Among the corporations have been situated exterior of america, together with Canada.
The hackers, referred to as Salt Hurricane, are certainly one of a number of China-backed hacking teams mentioned to be focusing on the U.S. and its allies as a part of a multi-year effort to organize for a future anticipated Chinese language invasion of Taiwan, in response to U.S. authorities officers.
