Officials say a Chinese hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon compromised at least eight of America’s telecoms networks. The intruders stole the call-record metadata of a “large number” of Americans. They gained access to the wiretap requests of security agencies—meaning they could work out if any Chinese spies or agents were under American surveillance.

A Chinese hacking campaign that spied on texts and calls of U.S. citizens is significantly larger than previously known to the public.

US officials are still trying to help major telecom providers evict Chinese government-backed hackers from their networks and don’t have a timeline for when that will be done, officials said Tuesday.

The White House said that a broad Chinese hacking operation had infiltrated at least eight American telecommunications companies and that none of them have managed to remove the Chinese hackers from their systems.

Chinese hackers compromised eight American telecommunications companies as part of a wide-ranging espionage effort to gather intelligence about prominent US citizens, Biden administration officials said Wednesday.

A large number of Americans' metadata has been stolen in the sweeping cyberespionage campaign carried out by a Chinese hacking group dubbed "Salt Typhoon," a senior U.S. official told journalists on Wednesday.

A US government security official urged Americans to use encrypted messaging as major telecom companies struggle to evict Chinese hackers from their networks. The attack has been attributed to a Chinese hacking group called Salt Typhoon.