The company says names, contact details, and ID documents provided in connection with reservations and travel were stolen from its systems.

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A notorious Chinese hacking campaign against telecommunications companies has now reached into a variety of additional sectors across the globe, including government, transportation, lodging and military targets, according to an alert U.S. and world cybersecurity agencies published Wednesday.

The alert is an effort to give technical details to potential victims of the campaign from the People’s Republic of China-backed group commonly known as Salt Typhoon, the alleged culprit behind what has been called the most serious telecom breach in U.S. history. Those intrusions may have begun years ago and that first came to light last fall, accompanied by revelations that the hackers targeted U.S. presidential candidates.

“By exposing the tactics used by PRC state-sponsored actors and providing actionable guidance, we are helping organizations strengthen their defenses and protect the systems that underpin our national and economic security,” Madhu Gottumukkala, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said in a news release.

In comments to The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post on Wednesday, the FBI said the scope of the Salt Typhoon campaign includes hitting more than 80 countries and 200 American organizations, beyond the previous nine identified telecom company victims.

The alert also names Chinese companies identified as being part of the campaign. Its recommendations include patching known vulnerabilities that have been actively exploited and securing “edge” devices that the hackers have used to get into networks, such as routers. 

Government agencies participating in the alert hailed from Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom. U.S. agencies besides the FBI and CISA that collaborated on it included the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense’s Cyber Crime Center.

“The advisory outlines how Chinese state-sponsored actors are exploiting vulnerabilities in routers used by telecommunications providers and other infrastructure operators,” according to the news release. “These actors often take steps to evade detection and maintain persistent access, particularly across telecommunications, transportation, lodging, and military networks.”

Telecommunications networks are a valuable target for hackers because they can serve as a hub into other communications. But targeting the other sectors mentioned in the alert can round out the intel profile for the attackers, said John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group​​.

“In addition to targeting telecommunications, reported targeting of hospitality and transportation by this actor could be used to closely surveil individuals,” he said in a written statement. “Information from these sectors can be used to develop a full picture of who someone is talking to, where they are, and where they are going.”

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Canada's tech job market has collapsed from its pandemic-era boom, with postings down 19% from 2020 levels. Analysts say the decline was sharper than the overall job market and worsened after ChatGPT's debut in 2022 fueled AI-driven shifts in workforce demand. The Canadian Press reports: "The Canadian tech world remains stuck in a hiring freeze," said Brendon Bernard, Indeed's senior economist. "While both the tech job market and the overall job market have definitely cooled off from their 2022 peaks, the cool off has been much sharper in tech." He thinks the fall was likely caused by the market adjusting after a pandemic boom in hiring along with recent artificial intelligence advances that have reduced tech firms' interest in expanding their workforces. "We went from this really hot job market with job postings through the roof to one where job postings really crashed, falling well below their pre-pandemic levels," Bernard said. However, he sees AI's recent boom as a "watershed moment." While much of the decline in tech job postings has been in software engineer roles, Indeed found hiring for AI-related jobs was still up compared to early 2020. In fact, machine learning engineers and roles that support AI infrastructure, such as data engineers and data centre technicians, were among the job titles with postings still above early-2020 levels. At the same time, Indeed saw postings for senior and manager-level tech jobs drop sharply from their 2022 peak, but as of early 2025, they were still up five per cent from their pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, basic and junior tech titles were down 25 per cent. When it compared Canada's overall decline in tech job postings, Indeed found the country's decrease from pre-pandemic levels was somewhat milder than the retrenchment it has observed in the U.S., U.K., France and Germany. The U.S. fall amounted to 34 per cent, while in the U.K. it was 41 per cent. France saw a 38 per cent drop and Germany experienced a 29 per cent decrease. "All this just highlights is that this tech hiring freeze is a global tech hiring freeze," Bernard said.

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