After China Hacks US Telecoms, it Complains About “Seabed Sentinels”

Right after it was disclosed that China hacked into the major telecom providers in the U.S. and eavesdropped on calls and texts for major national politicians like (but not limited to) Trump and Harris, China is claiming that unnamed western countries are spying on them.

Can you imagine that? Countries spying on each other. The nerve of them.

China’s Ministry of State Security, which performs functions similar to our FBI and CIA, announced on WeChat that it has discovered devices designed for reconnaissance and monitoring of the country’s waters, including intelligence and technical data theft.

Hmmm. Seems a lot like what China does every day.

But, governments need to make their own citizens think they are being useful, hence the announcement was on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter as opposed to in the newspaper or a press conference,

All countries spy on each other. It is, in fact, one of the many purposes of having embassies in foreign countries. It provides diplomatic cover for the spying that countries do.

Collecting data at sea, possibly in international or disputed waters, or covertly in domestic waters, could yield very useful data. Not only will that tell us about speed and location of adversary’s ships, but if any communications coming from the ship are not encrypted, that could be a treasure trove. Even if the data is encrypted, it may be possible to crack the encryption.

Likely this is an effort on China’s part to distract from the Verizon breach, but no matter whether that is true or not, it points to the value of information in today’s world.

It does point out that if you care about the privacy of your corporate or personal information, you should take steps to protect it.

If you need help with that, please contact us.

Credit: Dark Reading

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