A month ago the Wall Street Journal reported that a group of Chinese hackers had infiltrated US internet providers. The hacking campaign was dubbed "Salt Typhoon."

Hackers linked to the Chinese government have broken into a handful of U.S. internet-service providers in recent months in pursuit of sensitive information, according to people familiar with the matter...

In Salt Typhoon, the actors linked to China burrowed into America’s broadband networks. In this type of intrusion, bad actors aim to establish a foothold within the infrastructure of cable and broadband providers that would allow them to access data stored by telecommunications companies or launch a damaging cyberattack.

Investigators are exploring whether the intruders gained access to Cisco Systems routers, core network components that route much of the traffic on the internet, according to people familiar with the matter.

As you can tell, details of what the hackers were trying to do and how far they got were pretty limited in that initial report. Today there is a big update on the story. It turns out part of "Salt Typhoon" was a specific attempt to gain information from phones used by Donald Trump and JD Vance.

Chinese hackers who are believed to have burrowed deep into American communications networks targeted data from phones used by former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Investigators are working to determine what communications data, if any, was taken or observed by the sophisticated penetration of telecom systems, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an active and highly sensitive national security case.

The type of information on phones used by a presidential candidate and his running mate could be a gold mine for an intelligence agency: Who they called and texted, how often they communicated with certain people, and how long they talked to those people could be highly valuable to an adversary like China.

What remains unclear is whether this attempt could have gotten a lot more than just data on which phone called which other phone at what time. Investigators still don't know if the hackers could potentially have gained access to the contents of email messages, for instance. Another possibility mentioned in the story is that the hackers could have been able to record live phone calls. But again, it seems no one knows how bad this was yet as the investigation is just getting started. But obviously in a worst case scenario this would be a major national security breach and the kind of thing that ought to result in some serious real-world consequences for China.

The other point made in this story is that Trump and Vance were not the only people targeted. Other government figures beyond the current campaign were also targeted but no one is offering any names. It sounds like the potential scope of this is an 11 on a scale of 1-10. We'll just have to wait a few more weeks to see what shakes out from the investigation.