According to Wireless Estimator.com, engineering logs shared with Communications Daily revealed that about 75,000 Cellcom subscribers in Northeastern Wisconsin faced complete voice and text outages. While backup circuits kept critical 911 services operational, many users were frustrated and confused, as they could not contact family members or receive authentication codes for banking and healthcare applications. Local businesses, including home-health agencies and medical clinics that depend on SMS alerts, had to switch to email and landline systems, which incurred additional expenses.
Cyber-security firm Imperva analyzed the event and reported a multi-vector Distributed Denial-of-Service attack that peaked at 4.8 million requests per second (RPS), making it one of the largest attacks against a regional carrier this year.
Although Cellcom has not publicly identified the attackers, government-linked threat actors, such as the Chinese-affiliated “Salt Typhoon” group, have been associated with recent telecom intrusions. Earlier this spring, a deputy national security advisor warned that Salt Typhoon’s campaign might have penetrated up to eight U.S. carriers, exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities and outdated configurations.
Comments