A former Verizon employee who fed information to Chinese security agents about his employer, Chinese hacking operations, and pro-democracy activists l

Florida Man Who Spied on Verizon for China Gets 4 Years in Prison

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2024-11-30 19:30:07

A former Verizon employee who fed information to Chinese security agents about his employer, Chinese hacking operations, and pro-democracy activists living in the U.S. was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday.

Ping Li, 59, pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiring to act as an agent of China going back to at least 2012. His sentencing comes as the U.S. cybersecurity community reels from a Chinese hacking operation that U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently described as the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history—by far.”

The operation, which compromised Verizon and other telecom giants, targeted politicians including Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and may have given the hacking group Salt Typhoon, which is linked to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), access to some victims’ call audio and text messages. The hack exploited security backdoors that the companies built into their systems to assist domestic law enforcement with wiretapping requests.

Li’s sentencing agreement doesn’t suggest that he was involved in the Salt Typhoon hack, but his case illustrates how China has sought to infiltrate major telecoms and use insiders to gather information about corporate operations and political opponents.