NSA Leaker, Snowden: US Hacked Chinese Mobile Phone Companies, Stole SMS Data

By Susan Duclos

Last week the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), insisted that the US was not spying on Chinese civilians and now NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has revealed more U.S. cyber-spying details, this time claiming the U.S. is hacking into major Chinese phone companies and text messages.

These reports, in two separate articles, come as the U.S. formally charges Snowden with espionage and is requesting that Snowden be extradited, help China might not be so willing to offer as these new details and emerge.

Via South China Morning Post:

US spies are hacking into Chinese mobile phone companies to steal text messages and attacking the servers at Tsinghua University, Edward Snowden has told the Sunday Morning Post.

The latest explosive revelations about US National Security Agency cybersnooping in Hong Kong and on the mainland are based on further scrutiny and clarification of information Snowden provided on June 12.

The former technician for the US Central Intelligence Agency and contractor for the National Security Agency provided documents revealing attacks on computers over a four-year period.

The documents listed operational details of specific attacks on computers, including internet protocol (IP) addresses, dates of attacks and whether a computer was still being monitored remotely.

The Sunday Morning Post can now reveal Snowden's claims that the NSA is:

• Extensive hacking of major telecommunication companies in China to access text messages
   
• Sustained attacks on network backbones at Tsinghua University, China’s premier seat of learning
   
• Hacking of computers at the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which owns one of the most extensive fibre optic submarine cable networks in the region

Pacnet, which recently signed major deals with the mainland's top mobile phone companies, owns more than 46,000 kilometres of fibre-optic cables. The cables connect its regional data centres across the Asia-Pacific region, including Hong Kong, the mainland, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. It also has offices in the US.

Snowden claims that data from Chinese mobile phone companies has been compromised, with millions of private text messages mined by the NSA.

Both China and the U.S. have accused each other of cyber-spying, so the information itself isn't surprising, but should the documents Snowden has provided be verified, proving the NSA's cyber-spying, relations could become severely strained, more than they already are, between the United States and China.

Full Wake up America NSA scandal coverage found here.

(Changes made to this post for the sake of clarity)