U.S.-based cybersecurity firm FireEye revealed that the Chinese hacker group APT41 has been backed by the state in compromising several major telecom firms and retrieving call records from the carriers’ customers whom they deemed as targets, intercepting text messages as well as call records worldwide.
The report did not name the telecom companies. The hackers searched call and text records for specific keywords, including the names of “high-value” targets such as the names of politicians, intelligence organizations, and political movements “at odds with the Chinese government,” according to the report.
