A Beijing-linked yearslong espionage campaign that hit U.S. telecom companies and swept up Donald Trump’s phone calls actually targeted more than 80 countries, reaching across the globe to a far greater extent than investigators initially understood.
The scope of the intrusion allowed Chinese intelligence officers to potentially surveil U.S. citizens’ private communications and track their movements around the globe, Brett Leatherman, the FBI’s top cyber official, said in an interview. The agency estimates that the intruders likely obtained more than one million call records and targeted the telephone calls and text messages of more than 100 Americans.
“This is one of the more consequential cyber espionage breaches we have seen here in the United States,” he said.
