Cybersecurity
Breach of Microsoft Engineer’s Account Likely Led to Hack of US Officials
- China-tied hackers stole key that enabled hacks of emails
- Commerce secretary among officials whose emails were breached
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China-linked hackers breached the corporate account of a Microsoft Corp. engineer and are suspected of using that access to steal a valuable key that enabled the hack of senior US officials’ email accounts, the company said in a blog post.
The hackers used the key to forge authentication tokens to access email accounts on Microsoft’s cloud servers, including those belonging to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Representative Don Bacon and State Department officials earlier this year.