# Salt Typhoon

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Salt Typhoon," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/salt-typhoon/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The Chinese intelligence operation John Kiriakou describes as having hit the jackpot — collecting data on effectively every American through the telephone companies — and his blunt assessment that the Chinese cyber unit is good and American defences are not.*

- **What:** A Chinese cyber operation against telecommunications companies
- **Who ran it, per Kiriakou:** A unit within the Chinese intelligence service that does only cyber warfare
- **Scale:** Data collected on "every single American"
- **Reported original targets:** Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, before the net was widened
- **Kiriakou's assessment of the attackers:** "They're good"
- **His assessment of the defence:** "Our defences are not so good"

**Salt Typhoon** is the code name for a Chinese cyber operation against telecommunications companies, which John Kiriakou assessed briefly on the DeProgram programme in September 2025.[1]

## The attacker

Kiriakou's judgement of Chinese capability is unhedged. *"The Chinese are really good at computer attacks. They're just really good. And they've got this unit within the Chinese intelligence service that only does cyber warfare."*[1]

## The operation

He describes the result as a windfall rather than a precise strike: *"they hit the jackpot with this thing, this Salt Typhoon, where they hacked the information of literally every American."*[1][2]

He reports, without endorsing it, a claim then circulating about the operation's origins — *"there are a couple of outlets today and yesterday that were saying that the real targets of this thing were Donald Trump and JD Vance"* — and gives the reasoning attributed to the operators for widening it: *"but then they thought, ah, no, we'll just cast a wide net and see how much success we can have."*[2]

His summary of the outcome is that the wider approach worked: *"they had complete success, where they were able to collect data from every single American."*[2]

## The verdict

Kiriakou's assessment is symmetrical and short. *"They're good"* — and, of the other side, *"our defences are not so good."*[2][3]

## The absence of a response

The host's complaint, which Kiriakou endorsed, was that no political response of any kind follows such breaches: that they appear in the newspaper, are read, and are forgotten, without a single politician proposing hearings or remedial action. Kiriakou's reply was *"yeah, you're absolutely right."*[4]

The operation belongs to a category of intelligence activity Kiriakou treats as distinct from the human-source work he did himself, and about which his commentary is usually a straightforward assessment of relative competence rather than a moral judgement.

## See also

- [National Security Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/national-security-agency)
- [Donald Trump](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/donald-trump)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-04), at 1:03:06. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IPfeItwnb4&t=3786s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-04-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-04), at 1:03:38. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IPfeItwnb4&t=3818s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-04-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-04), at 1:04:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IPfeItwnb4&t=3848s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-04-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
4. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-04), at 1:05:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IPfeItwnb4&t=3912s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-04-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/salt-typhoon/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt