China-based hackers have breached government and individual email accounts, Microsoft says

China called a Microsoft report that a Chinabased hacking group breached governmentlinked email accounts ldquodisinformationrdquo saying Wednesday that the accusation was meant to divert attention from US cyber activitiesIn a blog post published Tuesday Microsoft said the group which it identified as Storm0558 gained access to email accounts linked to 25 organisations including Western European government agenciesThe breach was detected weeks later when customers complained to Microsoft about abnormal mail activityldquoWe assess this adversary is focused on espionage such as gaining access to email systems for intelligence collectionrdquo Charlie Bell Microsofts executive vice president of security said in a separate Microsoft postA Washington Post report cited a statement from US officials claiming Storm0558 also breached unclassified email accounts linked to the US governmentA Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the accusation was ldquodisinformationrdquo aimed at diverting attention from US cyberattacks on ChinaldquoNo matter which agency issued this information it will never change the fact that the United States is the worlds largest hacker empire conducting the most cyber theftrdquo Wang said in a routine briefingldquoSince last year the cybersecurity organizations of China and other countries have issued many reports exposing the cyberattacks on China by the US Government over a long period of time but the US has not made a response so farrdquo he saidUS National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan who is at the NATO summit in Vilnius Lithuania where President Biden is told ABCs ldquoGood Morning Americardquo that the investigation is ongoingAlso readMumbai Western Railway to install water vending machines at 25 stationsldquoWe detected it fairly rapidly and we were able to prevent further breaches Sullivan saidThe matter is still being investigated so I have to leave it there because were gathering further information in consultation with Microsoft and we will continue to appraise the public as we learn morerdquoThe Storm0558 hackers used forged authentication tokens ldquopieces of information used to verify the identity of a userrdquo required to access the email accounts Microsoft saidIt said it has dealt with the attack and informed affected customersMicrosoft said it is working with the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency among others to guard against such attacksIt also said it would continue to monitor Storm0558s activitiesLast month Googleowned cybersecurity firm Mandiant said suspected statebacked Chinese hackers broke into the networks of hundreds of public and private sector organisations globally by using a security hole in a popular email security toolEarlier this year Microsoft said statebacked Chinese hackers were targeting US critical infrastructure and could be laying the technical groundwork to disrupt critical communications between the US and Asia during future crises AP