Chinese hackers have hacked into the e-mail accounts of US government agencies. They were supposed to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft’s cloud

Interestingly, a company from Redmond wrote that its targets were primarily “government agencies in Western Europe.” Later, however, the American authorities confirmed that organizations of the United States government fell victim to the hack.

During a meeting with journalists, representatives of the FBI and the US Cyber ​​Security Agency explained that hackers gained access to mailboxes by impersonating authorized users –

hackers from the Storm-0558 group were to use a vulnerability in Microsoft’s cloud security, which has already been patched. According to the findings of the American company, the attack took place in May, just before Antony Blinken’s visit to the Middle Kingdom. According to the Washington Post, hackers broke into to the mailbox of the head of the Ministry of Commerce, Gina Raimando, as well as to the mailboxes of a number of high-ranking representatives of the State Department.

Still on Wednesday, spokesman for the National Security Council, Adam Hodge reassured that hackers were only able to gain access to “open systems“, which would mean that the data taken over by the Chinese were not secret.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in an interview with ABC that the attacks were detected “relatively quickly” and a number of actions were taken to prevent further intrusions.

China denies. “Disinformation”

On Thursday, the authorities of the Middle Kingdom spoke about the hacker attack. Wang Wenbin, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs He described the American accusations as “disinformation.” He also said that in this way the US wants to divert attention from its cyberespionage activities against China.

Regardless of which agency published this information, it will not change the fact that the United States is the largest hacking empire in the world, carrying out the largest number of cyber thefts

Wang stated during a press briefing.

China has had it for years one of the most specialized “cyberarmy” in the world. From the report, Mandiant companies used the most arc zero-day (it’s about vulnerabilities in a given product or service that have not been detected before).