Investigators believe Chinese hackers gained access to the information stored on the phones of former President Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance.
These hackers reportedly gained access to various American telecommunications systems, including — in this specific case — Verizon phone systems, which helped them acquire the data of specific, individual cell phone devices.
The Trump campaign was alerted of the cyber attacks earlier this week.
News of the attacks broke Friday, thanks to an anonymously-sourced report from The New York Times.
Sources told the Times that investigators have yet to determine what data exactly was stolen or accessed.
But, given the sensitive nature of the communications that likely took place on the personal devices of the two Republican nominees, the data potentially acquired by China could be extremely valuable for foreign intelligence purposes.
According to the report, the hackers may now know “who [Trump and Vance] called and texted, how often they communicated with certain people, and how long they talked to those people …”
Trump and Vance were far from the only victims of the cyber attack, however.
Sources told the Times that they were among many different figures both “inside and outside [the] government” whose phones were targeted.
This news comes only a few months after Chinese hackers were found to have broken into a number of U.S. internet service providers.
An exclusive September report from The Wall Street Journal found that a Chinese “hacking campaign” called Salt Typhoon, was responsible for the earlier cyber attacks.
The report revealed that the Salt Typhoon was evidence that China had successfully launched an effective “army of cyberspies” to infiltrate secure networks and systems in the U.S. and around the world.
Prior to the more recent reported data breach, the Trump campaign was targeted by Iranian hackers.
The Iranians reportedly “repeatedly targeted his inner circle with spearphishing emails that were at least partly successful in gaining access to his campaign’s communications and documents.”
Since then, the Trump campaign ramped up its security efforts.
The Trump campaign has yet to put out an official statement on the cyber attack.
However, one campaign representative told the Times that the White House and Vice President Kamala Harris hold some culpability for “allowing a foreign adversary to target” Trump and Vance.
