Washington: Beijing-linked hackers gain access to US ambassador to China nicholas burns‘Email account in an espionage campaign has compromised at least hundreds of thousands of personal US government emails, it is believed wall street journal (WSJ) reported on Thursday.
Daniel Krittenbrink, the assistant secretary for East Asia, was also hacked in a wider spying campaign disclosed earlier this month. Microsoftthe report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Asked about the alleged breach in the two diplomats’ accounts, the State Department declined to provide any details and said the investigation into the espionage operation was ongoing.
Before the WSJ report came out, Krittenbrink was asked at a congressional hearing on US China policy whether he could deny that his or his employees’ emails were targeted in the Microsoft hack.
Krittenbrink said, “I can’t comment on the investigation being conducted by the FBI, but no, I wouldn’t rule it out.”
Burns and Krittenbrink are the only publicly named victims of the spying campaign, along with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, which led Washington’s top diplomat to warn her Chinese counterpart.
China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report, but the Chinese foreign ministry called the earlier allegations “disinformation”.
Microsoft said this last week chinese hackers misused one of its digital keys and used a flaw in its code to steal emails from US government agencies and other customers.
The company did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the WSJ report.
The breach has put Microsoft’s security practices under scrutiny, with officials and lawmakers calling on the Redmond, Washington-based company to make its top-level digital auditing, also known as logging, available for free to all of its customers. asked for.
Microsoft said in a statement late Thursday that it was taking the criticism seriously.
Last week, White House National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said, without elaborating, that the intrusion into Microsoft’s cloud security “affected unclassified systems”.
“Executives immediately contacted Microsoft to determine the source and vulnerability in their cloud service,” Hodge said.
A spokeswoman for the department said in a statement at the time that the State Department “detected the unusual activity” and “took immediate steps to secure our systems.”
Daniel Krittenbrink, the assistant secretary for East Asia, was also hacked in a wider spying campaign disclosed earlier this month. Microsoftthe report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Asked about the alleged breach in the two diplomats’ accounts, the State Department declined to provide any details and said the investigation into the espionage operation was ongoing.
Before the WSJ report came out, Krittenbrink was asked at a congressional hearing on US China policy whether he could deny that his or his employees’ emails were targeted in the Microsoft hack.
Krittenbrink said, “I can’t comment on the investigation being conducted by the FBI, but no, I wouldn’t rule it out.”
Burns and Krittenbrink are the only publicly named victims of the spying campaign, along with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, which led Washington’s top diplomat to warn her Chinese counterpart.
China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report, but the Chinese foreign ministry called the earlier allegations “disinformation”.
Microsoft said this last week chinese hackers misused one of its digital keys and used a flaw in its code to steal emails from US government agencies and other customers.
The company did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the WSJ report.
The breach has put Microsoft’s security practices under scrutiny, with officials and lawmakers calling on the Redmond, Washington-based company to make its top-level digital auditing, also known as logging, available for free to all of its customers. asked for.
Microsoft said in a statement late Thursday that it was taking the criticism seriously.
Last week, White House National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said, without elaborating, that the intrusion into Microsoft’s cloud security “affected unclassified systems”.
“Executives immediately contacted Microsoft to determine the source and vulnerability in their cloud service,” Hodge said.
A spokeswoman for the department said in a statement at the time that the State Department “detected the unusual activity” and “took immediate steps to secure our systems.”