Cybersecurity Policy Report, Senators Seek Telecom Security Report, Oppose FCC Reversal on Cyber Rules, (Nov 14, 2025)

By Tom Leithauser

Trump administration officials should declassify and release a report on cybersecurity vulnerabilities in U.S. telecom networks and encourage the FCC to retain cybersecurity rules for telecom carriers, according to Sens. Mark Warner (D., Va.) and Ron Wyden (D., Ore.).

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency promised over the summer to release a 2022 assessment of the telecom sector’s cyber defenses that Sen. Wyden had sought following revelations that the Chinese government had breached U.S. telecom networks in a cyber espionage campaign known as Salt Typhoon (CPR, July 29).

But the report, which Sen. Wyden believes would spur the telecom industry and its regulators to prioritize cybersecurity, still “remains hidden from the American public,” Sens. Wyden and Warner said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

The telecom security report is “critically important to U.S. national security,” but the Department of Homeland Security has “inexplicably” failed to release it, the senators wrote.

“The Salt Typhoon compromise represents one of the most serious espionage campaigns against the communications of U.S. government leaders in history, and highlighted important gaps in our nation’s communications security—in some cases, with providers ignoring basic security precautions such as credential re-use across network appliances and failure to adopt multi-factor authentication for highly privileged network administrator accounts,” they said.

“The Salt Typhoon hack is not the only counterintelligence and national security threat to the U.S. communications sector. Foreign adversaries—including non-state actors—have been able to exploit longstanding vulnerabilities in U.S. phone networks to track phones, tap calls and texts, and remotely infect phones with spyware,” they added.

“The continued suppression of a report identifying serious vulnerabilities of the U.S. telecommunications sector undermines the public’s understanding of these threats and stymies an important public debate on a path forward to secure the U.S. telecommunications sector and protect the U.S. Government and all Americans who rely on that sector,” the senators said.

Sen. Wyden intends to block a Senate vote to confirm Sean Plankey as CISA’s director until the telecom security report is released (CPR, April 10).

The senators’ letter also notes that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr plans to ask the Commission at its Nov. 20 meeting to rescind a declaratory ruling that requires telecom carriers to take steps to prevent future Salt Typhoons. The Commission adopted the ruling in January under former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, but Chairman Carr views it as less effective than a more collaborative approach with carriers on cybersecurity (CPR, Oct. 31).

The senators asked Secretary Noem and DNI Gabbard to discourage Chairman Carr and the FCC from rescinding the declaratory ruling.

“Given the continuing threat of adversary compromise of insecure U.S. telecommunications infrastructure, we also request that you encourage the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to maintain mandatory minimum cybersecurity standards for our communications sector,” they said.

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