WASHINGTON – Chinese hackers involved in a larger spying operation targeted cellphones used by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, his running mate JD Vance and people associated with Kamala Harris’ Democratic campaign, people familiar with the matter said Friday with the problem.

It was not immediately clear what data, if any, may have been accessed. U.S. officials are continuing to investigate, according to the people, who were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

An FBI statement did not confirm the identities of any of the potential targets, but said it was investigating “unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.”

“Agencies across the U.S. government are working together to aggressively mitigate this threat and are coordinating with our industry partners to strengthen cyber defenses in the commercial communications sector,” the FBI said.

U.S. officials believe the campaigns were among several targets of a broader cyber espionage operation launched by China, the people said. It was not immediately clear what information China hoped to glean, although Beijing has for years engaged in vast hacking campaigns aimed at collecting private data of Americans and government workers, spying on technology and corporate secrets from major US companies and target US infrastructure. .

The news that major political candidates and their campaigns have been targeted comes as US officials remain on high alert for foreign interference in the final stretch of the presidential campaign. Iranian hackers were blamed because it targets Trump campaign officials and the Justice Department revealed vast disinformation campaigns orchestrated by Russiawho is said to favor Trump over Harris.

China, by contrast, is seen by U.S. intelligence officials as taking a neutral stance in the race and instead focusing on down races, targeting candidates of both parties based on their stance on issues of key importance to Beijing, including support for Taiwan.

The New York Times first reported that Trump and Vance were targeted and said the campaign was informed of the development this week. Three people confirmed the AP story, including one who said people associated with the Harris campaign were also targeted.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said on Friday that they were not familiar with the details and could not comment, but maintained that China is routinely victimized by cyber attacks and opposes the activity.

“Presidential elections are the internal affairs of the United States. China has no intention and will not interfere in US elections. We hope the US side will not make accusations against China during the election,” the statement said.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not elaborate on the Chinese operation, but issued a statement accusing the Harris campaign of emboldening foreign adversaries, including China and Iran. Trump did not respond to shouted questions about whether his phone had been hacked by China as he left an event in Texas.

The FBI has repeatedly warned over the past year about hacking operations in China, with director Chris Wray telling Congress in January that investigators disrupted a state-sponsored group known as Volt Typhoon. This operation disrupted a botnet of hundreds of small office and home routers in the US owned by private citizens and companies. Their ultimate targets included US water treatment plants, the power grid and transportation systems, with Wray warning that Beijing is positioning itself to disrupt the daily lives of Americans if the United States and China ever go to war.

last month, Wray said the FBI disrupted a separate campaign by the Chinese governmentcalled Typhoon Flax, which targeted universities, government agencies, and other organizations and installed malicious software on more than 200,000 consumer devices, including cameras, camcorders, and home and office routers.

The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Chinese hackers broke into the networks of U.S. broadband providers and potentially accessed systems that law enforcement officials use for wiretapping requests.

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Michelle L. Price in New York and Jill Colvin in Austin, Texas contributed to this report.