US govt email accounts breached by China-based hackers, confirm White House and Microsoft

The White House and Microsoft admitted that China-based hackers were able to breach email accounts at two dozen organisations, including United States government agencies, in what is being alleged as a spying campaign aimed to acquire sensitive information, CNN reported on Wednesday.

According to the American media outlet, the full scope of the breach is being probed. However, US officials and Microsoft have been quietly trying to figure out in recent weeks what impact the hack had and contain the fallout.

“Last month, US government safeguards identified an intrusion in Microsoft’s cloud security, which affected unclassified systems,” National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge told CNN in a statement.

“Officials immediately contacted Microsoft to find the source and vulnerability in their cloud service,” Hodge said. “We continue to hold the procurement providers of the US Government to a high-security threshold.”

In a statement, the NSC spokesperson did not identify the country behind the hack. However, CNN shared that Microsoft executives, in a blog post, admitted that the hackers were based in China and were focused on espionage.

An official, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity, shared that an “ongoing, active investigation” in the US government is underway to understand the full scope of the hack.

As per the report, US officials have identified China as the most advanced of adversaries in cyberspace. The FBI has said Beijing has a larger hacking program than all other governments combined.

China has constantly denied allegations.

The US news outlet did try reaching out to the Chinese mission in Washington, DC, but it did not respond to a request for comment.

According to CNN, the hacking campaign began in mid-May, when the China-based hackers used a stolen sign-in key to burrow their way into email accounts, according to Microsoft.

The tech giant has since blocked the hackers from accessing customer emails using that technique, Microsoft said late Tuesday.