According to reports, Salt Typhoon may have gained access to these organizations using compromised Cisco routers. The U.S. government is said to be in the early stages of its investigation, but the breach could be "potentially catastrophic" if it involved hacking into systems that house much of the U.S. government's requests, including the potential identities of Chinese targets of U.S. surveillance.
Salt Typhoon's TTPs are highly sophisticated, and they have been able to evade detection by using advanced techniques such as encryption and secure communication protocols. The group's access to wiretap systems gives them a significant advantage over other hacking groups, and it's likely that they will use this access to gather intelligence on U.S. targets.