Sen. Marco Rubio issued a dire warning about what would happen if the U.S. were victim to a cyber attack after a massive cellphone outage affected Americans on Thursday.
A large-scale cellphone outage struck AT&T on Thursday, leaving customers unable to make phone calls or send text messages. Instead, an SOS symbol was displayed on their phone screens in the place where cell service is typically shown.
The widespread outages began after 3 a.m. ET Thursday morning and peaked around 10 a.m., when about 74,000 AT&T users reported having issues with their cellphone service, according to monitoring website Downdetector.
Many details about the outage, including what caused it, remained unclear Thursday. AT&T said in a statement the company is "working urgently to restore service" to customers but has not provided a reason for the outage.
Rubio, a Florida Republican, responded to the outage with a warning about what may happen in the case of a cyber-attack from China. He said that scenario would be "100 times worse" than what Americans experienced Thursday morning in a post to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
"I don't know the cause of the AT&T outage. But I do know it will be 100 times worse when #China launches a cyber attack on America on the eve of a #Taiwan invasion. And it won't be just cell service they hit, it will be your power, your water and your bank," Rubio wrote.
Newsweek hasreached out to Rubio's office for comment via email.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez, also a Florida Republican, echoed Rubio's sentiments, resharing the post and adding, "Agreed, Senator @marcorubio! Communist #China will continue to work overtime to undermine America & the free world."
Although Downdetector indicated T-Mobile was also affected by the outage, a spokesperson for the network told Newsweek they did not have any issues on Thursday.
"We did not experience an outage. Our network is operating normally. Downdetector is likely reflecting challenges our customers were having attempting to connect to users on other networks," T-Mobile said in a statement.
Rubio's warning comes just days after FBI Director Christopher Wray said China's ability to plant malware inside U.S. infrastructure networks is at a "scale greater than we'd seen before," reported the Wall Street Journal.
Western security agencies have become increasingly concerned about the potential of Chinese cyber attacks. Newly leaked documents reveal Beijing's wide-ranging hacking operations and its priorities in its global push to shape the global information landscape.
Wray also warned about attacks on "critical" infrastructure during a hearing of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party last month.
"There has been far too little public focus on the fact that PRC (People's Republic of China} hackers are targeting our critical infrastructure—our water treatment plants, our electrical grid, our oil and natural gas pipelines, our transportation systems—and the risk that poses to every American requires our attention now," he said.
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Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more
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