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Two U.S. senators are accusing the Department of Defense ( DOD ) of not doing enough to protect the communications of its military personnel , as the U.S. government contends with an ongoing Chinese hacking campaign target American phone and internet giants . The senators say the Department of Defense still relies too heavily on old - fashioned landline calls , and unencrypted cellular Call and text , which are vulnerable to spy by alien spies .
Democratic senator Ron Wyden from Oregon and Republican senator Eric Schmitt from Missouri specifically manoeuver to threat , such as the Taiwanese governing espionage mathematical group known as Salt Typhoon , which was recentlyaccused of breaking into major U.S. telecommunications provider , include AT&T and Verizon , to spot on Americans .
“ The widespread adoption of insecure , proprietary tools is the direct result of DOD leadership failing to require the exercise of default end - to - end encryption , a cybersecurity better pattern , as well as a loser to prioritize communication certificate when measure different communications platforms , ” the senatorswrote in a two-way letterto the Department of Defense ’s authorities watchdog . “ DOD ’s failure to secure its unclassified voice , video recording , and textbook communication with end - to - end encoding technology has left it needlessly vulnerable to foreign espionage . ”
The senator also cite SS7 , a decades - older communications protocol that sound toter around the world still used to route song and texts — and is routinely exploit for espionage — and its successor communications protocol , Diameter , as weakness that DOD employees are still vulnerable to , give that global telephone service have yet to embrace new method to protect even calls and texts in passage .
Wyden and Schmitt are postulate the DOD to reconsider its contracts with the U.S. telephone service , and instead “ renegotiate with the undertake wireless carrier , to require them to adopt meaningful cyber defenses against surveillance threats , and if requested , to share their third - company cybersecurity audit with DOD . ”
The senator ’ letter include two whitepapers — one from earlier in July and another from October — that the DOD sent to Wyden ’s office , react to a serial of questions related to the department ’s cybersecurity posture .
answer a head about SS7 , the DOD ’s main information officer concedes that DOD consort SS7 and Diameter are not secure , writing that “ there are limited protections ” against weakness that the carrier themselves have . “ Therefore DOD managed mobile solutions encrypt data in passage to protect against inactive collection . ”
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At the same time , the CIO wrote that the DOD has not conducted its own audit , instead swear on telecom providers own and third - party commissioned audits . The DOD , however , has not brush up those audit because the carriers regard them protect as attorney - client privileged information .
The CIO also admitted that the DOD has n’t disabled roaming or reject SS7 and Diameter traffic , even for DOD users in Russia , China , and other high - risk commonwealth that are have it off for deal cyberattacks on sound .
Jeffrey Castro , a spokesperson for the DOD ’s inspector general , told TechCrunch that the guard dog has received the alphabetic character and is review it .
