Overview
- On Feb. 3, Sen. Maria Cantwell asked Chair Ted Cruz to convene a Senate Commerce Committee hearing with AT&T CEO John Stankey and Verizon CEO Dan Schulman.
- Cantwell says AT&T and Verizon acknowledged commissioning Mandiant security assessments but declined to share them with Congress, and that Mandiant withheld the documents at the companies’ direction.
- Expert testimony to Congress warned providers may not sustain remediation without a verification regime and said carriers should be held accountable for inconsistent basic network hygiene.
- A joint advisory warned Chinese state-sponsored actors target backbone routers for persistent access, and the FBI reports Salt Typhoon targeted more than 200 U.S. organizations across 80 countries.
- The FCC recently rescinded post-attack rules intended to require cybersecurity certifications from carriers, while Cantwell points to reports suggesting intruders may still be present in telecom networks.