Lawmakers introduce bill for voluntary telecom cyber rules after Salt Typhoon hacks
Sens. Warner and Cruz introduced a bill for voluntary telecom cybersecurity practices after Salt Typhoon.
U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Ted Cruz introduced the Telecommunications Cybersecurity and Resilience Act to create voluntary cybersecurity best practices and an optional third-party certification for telecom companies. The bill would form a working group inside the NTIA to draft sector-specific practices, review them every two years, and report annually to Congress. It follows Salt Typhoon, in which China-backed hackers held years-long access to at least nine U.S. carriers, including Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen, collecting call detail records and sometimes intercepting audio and text tied to about 150 high-profile targets. The proposal comes nearly a year after earlier mandatory telecom cybersecurity rules adopted after those intrusions were scrapped.