Did China hack into Donald Trump's cellphone?

Information is the name of the game when it comes to international conflict. And now, when everyone carries an electronic device that knows everything about you, you never know when something will be seen by enemy eyes.

The New York Times informed back in October that Chinese hackers might have targeted the data of cellphones owned by then-Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance.

According to The New York Times, investigators are trying to uncover what data did the Beijing operatives managed to obtain or observe from both of them, during the presidential campaign trail.

This could have included text messages, phone calls, how often and for how long they communicated with certain people. This information could be more valuable if it could be observed on real time.

However, intelligence sources affirmed at the time that this was just the latest move in a large and ongoing strategy from Chinese-backed hackers into US telecommunications.

Just a few weeks earlier The Washington Post informed that the White House formed an emergency team to deal with the growing threat of Chinese espionage.

The measure was adopted after a series of cyberattacks aimed at US telecommunications companies that have been linked to China.

According to The Washington Post, between 10 and 12 corporations were hit in 2024 by Chinese hackers, the most important ones being Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen.

The Biden White House that the goal of these cyberattacks has been information gathering, particularly this close to the US election.

CBS News writes these Chinese hackers broke into communication platforms used by US intelligence officials to conduct wiretaps.

According to Axios, Chinese hackers were able to obtain highly sensitive intelligence and law enforcement data.

The lack of a clear entry point and a time frame to know how long these cyberattacks have been going make it difficult to properly deal with these hackers.

CBS News spoke with an anonymous US intelligence official that the depth and damage caused by the cyberattacks are difficult to grasp, but everything hints to an online group known as Salt Typhoon.

Axios explains that Salt Typhoon is just one out of many advanced persistent threats that are suspected to be backed by Beijing.

“The recently reported hack of U.S. telecommunications companies' wiretapping systems should serve as a major wake-up call to the government”, Democratic Senator for Oregon Ron Wyden warned in a letter, as cited by CBS News.

With all the changes of the first few weeks of Trump's return to the White House, there hasn't been much talk about China's spies looking at the data of the 47th President of the United States. But it's likely that they have found other ways to have access.