In Brief Posted:
10:26 AM PDT · August 19, 2026
Image Credits: Gabby Jones / Bloomberg / Getty Images
New reporting from Bloomberg revealed how cybersecurity staff at U.S. phone provider T-Mobile identified and expelled Chinese hackers from its network in 2024 during a spate of industry-wide intrusions by Beijing aimed at stealing customer data.
The hacks were carried out by a Chinese government-backed hacking group called Salt Typhoon. S.
government officials, including then-presidential candidates. Hacked companies included AT&T, Verizon, satellite phone network Viasat, and network infrastructure giants Charter and Windstream.
By and large, T-Mobile escaped a widescale breach of its network by catching the activity early — and resorted to physically cutting the cable to a compromised system, per Bloomberg.
The publication said T-Mobile’s cyber staff spent months looking for suspected hackers in its network without success. Eventually, the company found unusual behavior on one of its systems coming from another router belonging to a different telecom company, which T-Mobile did not name.
After identifying the breach, T-Mobile’s cybersecurity chief Jeff Simon told Bloomberg that he and three others drove to the nearby Bellevue, Washington, data center, found the compromised system, pulled out a set of scissors and snipped the cable connecting the box to the outside world.
We’ve reached out to T-Mobile for more information, and we’ll update this story if we hear back.
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