US Commerce Secretary account among hacked in Chinese hackers Microsoft attack

United States officials reported that hackers potentially supported by China have successfully breached the email accounts of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and several State Department officials before State Secretary Antony Blinken's scheduled visit to Beijing. The attack occured by exploiting Microsoft Cloud vulnerability.

The investigation suggests that Raimondo was the only cabinet-level official successfully targeted. Although the hackers gained access to other State Department email accounts, they couldn't acquire emails from Secretary Blinken's account. The attack seemed focused on individual email accounts rather than a large-scale data exfiltration, which China-based hackers have been accused of doing before.

The US administration officials did not disclose the specific group responsible for the attack. However, Microsoft revealed earlier that Chinese hackers aimed to collect intelligence on the US government through email account breaches. The intrusion was described as "targeted," with the hackers going after specific accounts rather than conducting a broad, data-gathering intrusion.

The State Department discovered the breach on June 16 and promptly informed Microsoft.

After detecting the "anomalous activity," the State Department took measures to secure its systems and vowed to monitor and respond swiftly to any further activity. Microsoft's subsequent investigation revealed that the hackers had targeted around 25 organizations, including various government agencies.