The telecommunications industry is at a crossroads, facing relentless attacks from state-sponsored cyber threats while carrying the immense responsibility of securing global communications. The nature of communications infrastructure, which has been built for speed and efficiency has created vulnerabilities that sophisticated threat actors continue to target.
As former CISA Director Jen Easterly noted in a recent interview, telecommunications systems were “architected for speed and efficiency, they weren’t built with security as top of mind.” These weaknesses have made routers, firewalls, and switches the “connective tissue and the soft underbelly” of critical networks, which advanced persistent threat groups, including Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, have exploited.
Recent breaches highlight the urgent need for not only stronger security measures, but the pivot to strategies and solutions that improve operational resiliency. In the last year, reports indicate that several hacking groups have infiltrated major U.S. telecom providers, including Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, by exploiting routers and the weaknesses within the interconnecting…
