One of the most vulnerable sectors at the moment is telecommunications. As in 2018, it was noted that organisations in the telecoms sector had been directly targeted, along with regular instances of compromised telecoms equipment and the use of “lures” referencing telecoms services. This trend likely supports state-sponsored espionage actors as they seek to gain access to a broad customer base that relies on telecom services in their target countries.
The targeting of the telecom sector is historically within the scope of several Chinese adversaries; however, the number of operations affecting this sector, or using lures referencing telecom services, suggests an increase in China-based cyber espionage operations on a larger scale, and supports previous assessments that these adversaries regularly engage in upstream targeting. Furthermore, both Iranian and Russian adversaries have been identified as targeting those in the telecom sector.