HONG KONG, CHINA — China on Wednesday called a Microsoft report that a group of hackers infiltrated email accounts linked to European governments is “disinformation,” adding that the charge seeks to divert attention from cyber activities. from United States. In a blog post Tuesday, Microsoft said the group, which it identified as Storm-0558, focuses on operations such as espionage and data theft. According to the report, the group had access to email accounts affecting some 25 organizations, including government agencies in Western Europe, and to private accounts of individuals linked to those organizations. The infiltration went undetected for nearly a month until customers complained to Microsoft about abnormal activity in their mail. “We believe this adversary is focused on espionage, such as gaining access to email systems to gather information,” Charlie Bell, Microsoft’s executive vice president for security, said in another Microsoft post. The hackers gained access by falsifying authentication identifiers, the information used to verify a person’s identity and necessary to access email accounts. Microsoft has managed the attack and informed affected customers, the company said. According to a Washington Post report, US officials claimed that Storm-0558 also infiltrated unclassified email accounts linked to the US government. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said the allegation was “disinformation” aimed at diverting attention from US cyberattacks against China. “No matter which agency released this information, it will never change the fact that the United States is the world’s largest hacker empire that does the most cyber theft,” Wang said at a routine briefing. “Since last year, cyber security organizations from China and other countries have issued many reports exposing the US government’s cyber attacks on China over a long period of time, but the US has not responded so far.” the spokesperson added. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who is at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, where President Joe Biden is present, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that an investigation is underway. . “We caught it pretty quickly and were able to prevent further intrusions,” Sullivan said. Microsoft said it is working with the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, among others, to prevent similar attacks. He also said that he would continue to monitor the activity of Storm-0558. The incident was in addition to other security breaches attributed to China-based hackers. Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant said last month that alleged state-backed Chinese hackers had broken into the networks of hundreds of public and private organizations around the world by exploiting a loophole in a popular email security tool. Microsoft said this month that state-backed Chinese hackers attacked critical US infrastructure and could be setting the stage for a potential disruption of critical communications between the US and Asia during future crises. Connect with the ! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and activate notifications, or follow us on social networks: Facebook, Twitter and instagram.
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