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John Kirby, National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator, speaks during a daily briefing in the James S. Brady Press Room at the White House in Washington, DC, June 5, 2023.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
Chinese Intelligence Hacks Microsoft Email Accounts of 20 U.S. and Western European Government Agencies (Including State Department) in ‘Major’ Compromise, according to microsoft and US national security officials.
“The Senate Intelligence Committee is closely monitoring what we believe to be serious cybersecurity breaches by Chinese intelligence agencies,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat who chairs the Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday. “It is clear that China is steadily improving its cyber collection capabilities for the United States and its allies. Close cooperation between the U.S. government and the private sector is essential to counter this threat.”
A Warner spokeswoman confirmed that she had been briefed on the incident. The State Department also confirmed Wednesday that it was affected.
“The State Department detected unusual activity and immediately took steps to protect our systems. We will continue to monitor closely and respond quickly to any further activity,” a spokesperson told CNBC.
Hackers accessed Microsoft-powered government email accounts as part of China-based attackers’ ongoing efforts to spy on and steal sensitive government and corporate data. Codenamed Storm-0558 by Microsoft, the hacker group also compromised individual accounts “affiliated” with government agencies, presumably employees of the agency.
The breach was “mitigated” by Microsoft’s cybersecurity team after it was first reported to the company in mid-June 2023, Microsoft said in two blog posts about the incident. The hackers have been infiltrating government systems since at least May, the company said.
“This was a very sophisticated technique used by threat actors against a limited number of high-value targets. Mandiant Senior Vice President and Chief Technical of Google Cloud said. Constable Charles Kamakal. “We applaud Microsoft for working together, fixing issues, remediating, working with partners, and being transparent.”
US government officials have identified a possible breach into Microsoft. The National Security Council did not specify which agencies were affected, but preliminary report Officials with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the initial report was made by a single executive branch.
“Last month, US government security measures identified an intrusion into Microsoft’s cloud security, affecting an unclassified system,” National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said in a statement to Wall Street. We immediately contacted Microsoft and identified the source and vulnerability of the cloud service.” journal. “We will continue to impose high security standards on U.S. government procurement providers.”
Microsoft is a major government contractor and its Exchange software is used almost ubiquitously by public and private sector customers. The company has invested heavily in cybersecurity research and threat containment given how popular its software is and how high-profile many of its customers are.
For example, top law firm Covington & Burling was compromised by Chinese hackers in 2020 by exploiting Microsoft’s server software.
The compromise is a number of Microsoft and government officials admitting another Chinese state-backed group was behind espionage operations targeting “critical” US civilian and military infrastructure, including a naval base on Guam. It was done months later.
It’s also a timely example of the kind of threat that U.S. national security agencies have been warning about for months and years. US cybersecurity chief Jen Easterly called China a “breakthrough” threat.