OVERVIEW OF 2024 ● American telecom companies, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The group responsible was Salt Typhoon, and the incident is believed to be the most extensive cyberespionage campaign targeting the Western telecommunications sector to date. According to the White House, Chinese hackers had been embedded in telecom companies for one or two years, affecting not only the US but also several European and Southeast Asian countries. Salt Typhoon’s activities first gained media attention after reports surfaced that they had targeted the phone data of several high-ranking US politicians, including the vice president and president. Alongside state-sponsored espionage groups, cybercriminals also targeted the telecom sector. In October, Free, the second-largest internet service provider in France, suffered a breach in which a database containing the details of 19 million customer accounts was stolen and offered for sale on the dark web. CYBER SECURITY IN ESTONIA 2025 The US telecom company AT&T was also affected in the spring by the compromise of Snowflake’s data warehouse, which was among the largest service provider-based attacks of the Chinese hackers had been embedded in telecom companies for one or two years, affecting not only the US but also several European and Southeast Asian countries. year. Snowflake, a cloud-based platform for storing and analysing large volumes of data, became a target when the hacker group ShinyHunters found some Snowflake user credentials for sale on the dark web. Seizing the opportunity, they used the credentials to attempt ➜ 37