Microsoft says Chinese hackers breached authorities and particular person e-mail accounts

Microsoft in a weblog put up on Tuesday stated a China-based hacking group, which it recognized as Storm-0558, gained entry to e-mail accounts linked to 25 organizations, together with Western European authorities businesses.

The breach was detected weeks later when clients complained to Microsoft about irregular mail exercise.

“We assess this adversary is concentrated on espionage, resembling having access to e-mail techniques for intelligence assortment,” Charlie Bell, Microsoft’s executive vice president of security, said in a separate Microsoft post.

A Washington Post report cited a statement from U.S. officials claiming Storm-0558 also breached unclassified email accounts linked to the U.S. government.

China on Wednesday said the Microsoft accusation was meant to divert attention from U.S. cyber activities.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said the accusation was “disinformation” aimed toward diverting consideration from U.S. cyberattacks on China.

The Storm-0558 hackers used cast authentication tokens — items of data used to confirm the id of a person — required to entry the e-mail accounts, Microsoft stated. It stated it has handled the assault and knowledgeable affected clients.

Microsoft stated it’s working with the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, amongst others, to protect in opposition to such assaults.

“No matter which company issued this data, it’ll by no means change the truth that the United States is the world’s largest hacker empire conducting probably the most cyber theft,” Wang said.

“Since last year, the cybersecurity organizations of China and other countries have issued many reports exposing the cyberattacks on China by the U.S. Government over a long period of time, but the U.S. has not made a response so far,” he stated.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who’s on the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the place President Biden is, informed ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the investigation is ongoing.

“We detected it fairly rapidly and we were able to prevent further breaches,” Sullivan stated. “The matter is still being investigated, so I have to leave it there because we’re gathering further information in consultation with Microsoft and we will continue to appraise the public as we learn more.”

(With inputs from AP)

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Updated: 12 Jul 2023, 06:59 PM IST