Chinese hackers claim to have breached the official email account of Western Europe

A report by Microsoft claims that a Chinese hacking group has breached the email accounts of government agencies in Western Europe. Describing the claim as disinformation, Beijing has said that the purpose of this allegation is to divert attention from America’s cyber activities. In a blog post published on Tuesday, Microsoft said that the group, identified as Storm-0558, is engaged in acts of espionage and data theft.

The group has affected about 25 organizations, including accounts of government agencies and people associated with these organizations, by breaching email accounts. Additionally, the activity continued unabated for about a month until customers reported unusual email activity to Microsoft. Charlie Bell, Microsoft’s executive vice president of security, said, ‘We found that this group used to break into emails to gather intelligence.’

‘Email account linked to US government hacked’

A Washington Post report cited a statement by US officials, which claimed that Storm-0588 had also hacked email accounts belonging to the US government. Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the allegation was propaganda aimed at diverting attention from the US cyberattack on China. “It doesn’t matter which agency released this information, it will never change the fact that the US is the world’s biggest hacker with the largest number of cyber breaches,” he said at a regular press briefing.

Wenbin said, “Since last year, cyber security organizations in China and other countries have released several reports revealing cyberattacks by the US government for a long time, but the US has not yet responded.”

Microsoft made these allegations

Earlier, Microsoft said it was working with the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to prevent such attacks. The company also said that it will continue to monitor Storm-0558’s activities. Last month, Google-owned cyber security company Mandiant said that Chinese hackers, allegedly state-backed, had breached the networks of hundreds of public and private sector organizations around the world. Earlier this year, Microsoft said that government-backed Chinese hackers were targeting critical US installations.