Beijing-linked hackers: In a concerning cyber attack with suspected links to Beijing, hackers successfully breached the email account of US Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns.

The targeted hacking incident is believed to have compromised hundreds of thousands of individual US government emails, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of State for East Asia, was also among the victims of this extensive spying campaign, which was disclosed by Microsoft earlier this month.

The unauthorized access to both Burns and Kritenbrink’s email accounts raises serious concerns about the security of sensitive diplomatic communications.

Consistently labeling China as one of the most advanced adversaries in cyberspace, US authorities have pointed out that Beijing possesses a larger hacking program than all other governments combined.

The hackers infiltrated the unclassified US government email system in this recent breach, leading officials to operate under the assumption that no information on the unclassified network is entirely secure.

The Biden administration is particularly alarmed that the Chinese hacking operation may have given Beijing insights into US thinking leading up to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s critical trip to China in June. During a meeting with Chinese diplomat Wang Yi, Blinken raised the issue of the hacking incident, emphasizing its gravity.

As the investigation into the breach continues, the US response remains undisclosed. Microsoft’s assessment indicated that China-based hackers misused one of its digital keys and exploited a code flaw to gain unauthorized access to email accounts belonging to US government agencies and other clients.

The hacking activities commenced in mid-May, providing the perpetrators a significant head start before US government responders detected unusual cyber activity in mid-June.

Upon being alerted, senior cyber officials at the State Department and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) promptly mobilized to assess the situation.

However, the sophisticated nature of the hackers’ entry into the email accounts posed challenges for US officials and Microsoft analysts to initially identify the breach’s extent and origin.

As of now, the Chinese embassy in Washington has not commented on the report, and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs previously denied the allegations, dismissing them as “disinformation.”

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