Beijing-linked Hackers Breach US Ambassador And State Department Official's Emails

Hackers linked to Beijing infiltrated the email account of US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns as part of an espionage operation that appears to have compromised hundreds of thousands of individual US government emails, according to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report. 

The cyber-espionage campaign, previously disclosed by Microsoft, has also affected Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia, as reported by the same sources.

The breach, believed to be part of a wider spying operation, prompted Microsoft to raise an alarm after Chinese hackers allegedly misappropriated one of its digital keys and exploited a flaw in its code to gain unauthorised access to emails belonging to US government agencies and other clients. Although specific details remain unclear, it is suspected that the scope of this cyberattack is significant, with potentially hundreds of thousands of compromised emails.

When questioned about the incident at a congressional hearing on US China policy, Daniel Kritenbrink neither confirmed nor ruled out whether his or his staff's emails were targeted in the Microsoft hack. The State Department declined to provide further details, citing an ongoing investigation into the spying operation.

As of now, three high-ranking US officials have been publicly named as victims of this espionage campaign. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was also previously identified as one of the affected individuals.

In response to the allegations, the Chinese embassy in Washington issued a statement to Reuters reiterating China's firm opposition to cyberattacks and thefts in any form. They emphasised that identifying the source of cyberattacks is a complex technical issue, and called for a professional and responsible approach rather than making groundless speculations and accusations.

The breach has cast a spotlight on Microsoft's security practices, with officials and lawmakers calling on the technology giant to offer its highest level of digital auditing, or logging, to all its customers free of charge. In response to the criticism, Microsoft released a statement acknowledging the concerns raised and assuring that they are taking the feedback into account.

The incident has triggered immediate action from the State Department, which detected anomalous activity and took swift measures to secure their systems. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is actively investigating the matter in collaboration with Microsoft.

(Inputs from Reuters)