The US Commerce Department wants to further crack down on China Telecom, as it looks to push a ban on the company's remaining units in the US.
As reported by The New York Times, the US Commerce Department wants to go hard on Chinese companies in the wake of the recent hacks targeting US mobile carriers.
The publication reports that the US government issued a notice to China Telecom Americas, the US subsidiary of the Chinese carrier, last week. In the notice, the government detailed a preliminary finding that the company’s presence in American networks and its provision of cloud services posed a national security risk to the US.
China Telecom Americas has been given 30 days to respond to the notice. A decision on whether to ban the company will be down to the incoming Trump administration.
It was during the Biden administration that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked China Telecom Americas' licenses to provide ordinary phone services in the US.
Despite an appeal, a year later the ban was upheld.
The latest ban for China Telecom Americas comes amid heightened tensions between the two countries.
Last month, the US said that China was responsible for a hack against T-Mobile, which it claimed had become the latest carrier to be hacked by China.
The hackers, part of a group called Salt Typhoon, have been able to listen in on audio calls in real-time and have, in some cases, moved from one telecom network to another.
The alleged attack on T-Mobile followed reports of similar attacks against other US telcos including AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen Technologies.
T-Mobile noted that its defenses worked as designed, meaning that sensitive customer information wasn't exposed, nor was there any disruption to its services as it was able to stop the attack from advancing.
Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a former telecom venture capitalist, said the hack was the "worst telecom hack in our nation’s history."
“We’ve been taking a hard look at where Chinese technologies are in the United States and asking ourselves the question of, is this an acceptable level of risk?," said Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, in an interview yesterday, as per The New York Times.
“For a number of years, these companies have operated networks and cloud service businesses in the US, which involved network equipment that’s co-located with our internet infrastructure. And while in the past we may have viewed this as an acceptable level of risk, that is no longer the case.”
Earlier this year, the FCC said it is ordering the US units of China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile to discontinue fixed or mobile broadband Internet operations in the country.
In 2022, the US banned approvals of new telecommunications equipment from Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE, amid national security fears.
The Biden Administration said at the time that two companies posed "an unacceptable risk" to US national security.
The stance followed that of the previous government, with former President Donald Trump signing an executive order in May 2019 aimed at giving the federal government power to block US companies from purchasing any foreign-made telecommunications equipment deemed a national security risk.