Chinese hackers breach emails of US Commerce Secretary Raimondo, State Department officials
Raimondo and State Department officials in the weeks before State Secretary Antony Blinken visited Beijing in June, New York Times reported citing US officials. The investigation is underway but the US officials, on Wednesday, downplayed the idea that the Chinese hackers, who are likely to be part of the military or spy services, have stolen the sensitive information, insisting that no classified email or cloud systems were penetrated. The State Department's cybersecurity team first discovered the intrusion.
Raimondo, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of Beijing in the administration, was among the targets, according to two U.S. officials. Recently, she tightened export controls on China, threatening to cut off the country's supply of US semiconductor technology if it provides the chips to Russia.
Raimondo is also expected to visit China by the end of the summer, reported New York Times. Based on their preliminary investigation, officials believe she was the only cabinet-level official to be successfully hacked. The hackers were not able to acquire emails in Blinken's Microsoft 365 account, even as they got access to other State Department email boxes, officials said.
Multiple officials said the attack was aimed at individual email accounts, rather than a large-scale exfiltration of data, which Chinese hackers are suspected of having done before. US President Joe Biden's administration officials declined to give a full accounting of which the hackers had targeted officials. Earlier, on Tuesday, Microsoft revealed that the Chinese hackers with the intention to collect intelligence on the US have gained access to government email accounts.
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