US Telecoms Reject Regulation as Answer to Chinese Hacking

Industry Wants to Stick to Voluntary Measures Chris Riotta (@chrisriotta) • December 2, 2025

U.S. telecommunications networks are still vulnerable to foreign intrusion, national security and industry panelists told senators during a Tuesday hearing, warning that China and other adversaries are refining long-term access into American infrastructure. They disagreed over whether the telecoms sector should be forced to do anything about it.

The panel described a threat environment in which foreign nation-state hackers pair credential theft, persistent access and artificial intelligence-assisted reconnaissance to target major telecoms, identity systems and satellite networks.

A hands-off regulatory approach will not fix the problem, argued Debra Jordan, a former chief of the FCC's public-safety bureau who helped the agency establish first-ever mandatory cybersecurity regulations for telecoms, a move that Republican commission leadership rolled back in November (see: US FCC Scraps CALEA Move, Raising Telecom Security Fears).

"Hope is not a strategy ...