Chinese hackers target phones of Donald Trump, JD Vance and Harris ops

Chinese hackers engaged in a broader espionage operation targeted cellphones used by the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumphis running mate, J.D. Vanceand people associated with the Democratic campaign Kamala Harrispeople familiar with the matter said Friday.

It was not immediately clear what data, if any, was accessible. U.S. officials are continuing to investigate, said the people, who were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

An FBI statement did not confirm the identity of any of the potential targets, but said it was investigating “unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.”

“Agencies across the U.S. government are working together to aggressively mitigate this threat and are coordinating with our industry partners to strengthen cyber defenses in the commercial communications sector,” the FBI said.

U.S. officials believe the campaigns were among numerous targets of a larger cyberespionage operation launched by China, the people said. It was not immediately clear what information China hoped to collect, although Beijing has for years engaged in large-scale hacking campaigns aimed at harvesting the private data of Americans and government officials, spying on technology and trade secrets of major US companies and attacking US infrastructure . .

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Republished with permission from the Associated Press.

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