US "Government Emails Hacked by China"... China "False Information"

White House: "Mid-Last Month, Security Flaw in MS Cloud"

The White House announced that the email accounts of about 25 agencies, including government institutions, were breached by Chinese hackers. China denied the claims as false and countered by saying, "The United States is the world's largest hacker empire."

On the 12th (local time), according to the Washington Post (WP) and others, U.S. security authorities discovered a vulnerability in Microsoft's (MS) cloud security in mid-last month and notified MS, the White House said.

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

After an internal investigation, MS posted on its blog the day before that a China-based hacker group named "Storm-0558" had infiltrated the email accounts of about 25 agencies, including U.S. government institutions, and attacked user accounts of these agencies.

MS added that the hackers exploited security vulnerabilities in the MS cloud computing environment from May 15 and secretly operated for about a month until MS began its investigation on the 16th of last month. It was found that they used forged digital tokens to access user emails.

However, systems not classified as confidential were affected, and the Department of Defense, intelligence agencies, and military email accounts were reportedly not targeted by the hacking attack.

U.S. authorities suspect this hacking attack to be part of Chinese espionage activities. MS did not specifically name who was behind the hacking but stated that the hackers were based in China and focused on espionage activities.

China opposed these U.S. claims. Although the U.S. has repeatedly held China responsible for hacking, China has denied it each time.

Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a regular briefing that "I want to inform you that most of these false information were previously spread by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The U.S. Cyber Command is also the world's largest hacking group," adding, "The fact that the United States is the world's largest hacker empire and internet intelligence thief cannot be changed."