Blinken said those responsible for hacking US government emails would be brought to justice.
Washington:
US Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo was among a group of senior US officials whose emails were hacked earlier this year by a group that Microsoft says is responsible, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. That it is based in China, as the consequences of digital piracy continue to spread.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken made it clear to China’s top diplomat Wang Yi at a meeting in Jakarta on Thursday that any action targeting the US government, US companies or US citizens “is of deep concern to us, and we will take appropriate action”. do.” Hold those responsible accountable,” said another source, a senior State Department official.
On Tuesday, Microsoft revealed that a covert Chinese hacking operation had exploited a secret flaw in a part of the company’s authentication software to covertly break into email accounts belonging to 25 unnamed organizations.
Since this news broke, several victims in addition to the Commerce Department have acknowledged that they have been affected, including personnel at the State Department and the US House of Representatives. The infiltration activity started in May and continued for about a month.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry called the allegations “disinformation” in a statement to Reuters earlier this week.
Raimondo’s department has implemented a series of export control policies against China, curbing the transfer of semiconductors and other sensitive technologies.
A Commerce Department spokeswoman said Wednesday that Microsoft had notified the agency “about the agreement with Microsoft’s Office 365 system, and the department took immediate action to respond.” But the spokeswoman declined to comment specifically on the indictment against Raimondo.
A report by the US Inspector General’s Office in March sharply criticized the Commerce Department’s “fundamental shortcomings” in its cybersecurity incident response program, saying it violated security protocols, did not properly use cyber-security tools and Fake cyber attacks handled poorly.
A senior FBI official said on Wednesday that no classified information was obtained during the hacking operation. The hacking was highly targeted, only email inboxes were accessed and data was not destroyed.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV Staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)