The US State Department said on Wednesday, cyber attackIt has been less than a month since a group of Russian hackers infiltrated various government agencies. According to US media such as The Washington Post or CNN, the current attack a group of Chinese cyber spiesInfluencing the e-mails of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials.
Government spokesman Adam Hodge told CNN that “an intrusion into Microsoft’s cloud security affecting unclassified systems” was detected last month, and government officials immediately contacted the company and notified them of the situation. According to The Washington Post, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is among the officials affected. The newspaper also explains that while the case continues to be investigated by the FBI, the risks have already been mitigated.
On Tuesday night, Microsoft confirmed that it had mitigated an attack by a “China-based risk actor.” A spokesperson said in a statement that the agency responsible for US diplomacy confirmed today that it has detected “abnormal activity” in its systems, for which “urgent measures” have been taken. “We will continue to closely monitor any further activity in the future and respond quickly,” the spokesperson said.
The cyberattack took place less than a month later, on June 15. a Russian hacker group managed to infiltrate several government agencies As reported by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The ‘CL0P’ group, also known as ‘TA505’, was behind the cyberattack, but there was no indication at the time that the hackers were acting in coordination with the Vladimir Putin Government, according to an official.
But the biggest cyberattack on the US government in recent years occurred in 2019, when nearly 18,000 government agencies fell victim to a massive hack, again by Russian agents, using SolarWinds software.