The FBI and Department of Defense (DoD) revealed that Salt Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored hacker group linked to the Ministry of State Security and People’s Liberation Army, conducted a long-term cyber-espionage campaign against a US state National Guard network. The group breached the network and remained undetected for nearly a year, exfiltrating sensitive military and law enforcement data. The attack involved compromising backbone routers and networking equipment via known vulnerabilities, altering access controls, creating privileged accounts, and enabling remote management for persistent, long-term access. The primary objective was surveillance and intelligence gathering rather than financial gain, targeting telecom carriers, government organizations, military infrastructure, and healthcare sectors. The scale of the campaign was far broader than initially assessed, with at least 60 organizations across 80 countries affected. The FBI warned that the indiscriminate targeting of private communications poses a severe threat to national security, urging immediate collaboration with global partners to counter the activity. The DoD confirmed the group’s ability to move laterally across networks, leveraging trusted connections to pivot into other systems, further amplifying the risk of data exfiltration and operational disruption in critical infrastructure.