Chinese Hackers Steal Tens Of Thousands Of Emails From US State Department Accounts

Senator Eric Schmitt. Beware of hacking Chinese hackers. (photo: twitter @Eric_Schmitt ·)

JAKARTA - Chinese hackers who hacked Microsoft's email platform this year managed to steal tens of thousands of emails from the US State Department account. This news was conveyed by a Senate staff member to Reuters on Wednesday, September 27.

The staff, who attended a briefing by State Department IT officials, said the officials informed lawmakers that as many as 60,000 emails were stolen from 10 State Department accounts.

Nine of these victims work on East Asia and Pacific affairs, and one of them works on European affairs. This, according to the details of the briefing shared via email by the staff who did not wish to be named. The official works for Senator Eric Schmitt.

In July, US and Microsoft officials said that hackers linked to the Chinese government since May had accessed email accounts around 25 organizations. This includes the Department of Commerce and the US State Department. To what extent the compromise is made remains unclear.

The US allegation that China was behind the hack has tightened tensions between the two countries. Moreover, Beijing has denied the allegations.

Foreign Department individuals whose accounts were hacked mostly focus on Indo-Pacific diplomacy efforts. The hackers also got a list containing all the department's emails, according to a briefing last Wednesday.

This extensive hack has refocused attention on Microsoft's great role in providing IT services to the US government. The State Department has begun switching to "hybrid" environments with several supplier companies and increased use of multi-factor authentication as part of measures to protect its systems.

The hackers developed the device of a Microsoft engineer, which allows them to hack into the State Department's email account, according to the briefing.

Microsoft earlier this month said that hacking of senior State Department officials and the US Department of Commerce stemmed from the compromise of the corporate account of a Microsoft engineer.

"We need to strengthen our defenses against this kind of cyberattack and intrusion," Schmitt said in a statement shared by his staff in an email to Reuters after the briefing.

"We need to reconsider the federal government's dependence on one vendor as a potential weak point," he said.

A Microsoft spokesman did not immediately comment on the Senate briefing. The company, which has faced criticism for its security practices since the hack, has said the hacker group behind the incident - known as Storm-0558 - has hacked a webmail account using the company's Outlook service.

The State Department did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on Wednesday, and Schmitt was not available for an interview.