WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Chinese state-affiliated hackers intercepted audio from the phone calls of U.S. political figures including an unnamed campaign adviser of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said on Friday they were investigating unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by people associated with China.
Trump’s campaign and the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Post also reported the hackers were able to access unencrypted communications like text messages, of the individual.
Reuters reported Friday that Chinese hackers also targeted phones used by people affiliated with the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, were targeted, various media outlets reported last week.
The Trump campaign was made aware last week that Trump and Vance were among a number of people inside and outside of government whose phone numbers were targeted through the infiltration of Verizon phone systems, the New York Times reported Friday.
The Trump campaign was hacked earlier this year. The U.S. Justice Department charged three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps with the hack, accusing them of trying to disrupt the Nov. 5 election.
Verizon said Friday it was aware of a sophisticated attempt to target U.S. telecoms and gather intelligence and is working with law enforcement.
Congress is also investigating and earlier this month U.S. lawmakers asked AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies to answer questions about reports Chinese hackers accessed the networks of U.S. broadband providers.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said last week it was unaware of the specific situation but said China opposes and combats cyber attacks and cyber thefts in all forms.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Nick Zieminski)
