A top White House official says a ninth U.S. telecoms firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans.

A ninth U.S. telecom firm was confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign, a White House official said.

As more is learned about the Salt Typhoon breach that it attributed to China, officials are laying the blame on companies that were slow to identify