Chinese state-linked hackers secretly accessed government emails, says Microsoft

Microsoft on Wednesday released a statement saying that Chinese state-linked hackers, in a cyberespionage campaign, secretly accessed email accounts at around 25 organisations which also included government agencies.

In an interview with ABC television, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the United States had caught a violation of federal government accounts "fairly rapidly" and had managed to contain further infringements.

The hacking group, which Microsoft anointed Storm-0558, falsified digital authentication tokens to access webmail accounts running on the firm's Outlook service, Microsoft said in a statement that its firm released on its website.

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The activity began in the month of May.

"As with any observed nation-state actor activity, Microsoft has contacted all targeted or compromised organizations directly via their tenant admins and provided them with important information to help them investigate and respond," the statement added.

Microsoft, in its statement, did not specify as to which organisations or governments had been affected, but it added that the hacking group involved primarily targets entities in Western Europe.

White House National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said an intrusion in Microsoft's cloud security had "affected unclassified systems", without elaborating.

"Officials immediately contacted Microsoft to find the source and vulnerability in their cloud service," he added.

Chinese hackers targeted state department emails, say US officials

US officials on Wednesday said that the Chinese hackers specifically targeted and infiltrated specific State Department email accounts in the weeks before Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken travelled to Beijing in June, as per The New York Times reports.

The American officials further said that the probe into the cyberespionage attack, likely by the Chinese military or spy service, is currently ongoing. However, US officials have palliated the idea that the hackers stole any sensitive information, pressing that no classified email or cloud systems were infiltrated.

The intrusion was first discovered by the State Department’s cybersecurity team.

(With inputs from agencies)

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