Tag: Cyberattacks and Hackers

China Targeted State Department Emails in Microsoft Hack, U.S. Officials Say

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Chinese hackers tried to penetrate specific State Department email accounts in the weeks before Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken traveled to Beijing in June, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. The investigation of the efforts by the Chinese hackers, who likely are affiliated with China’s military or spy services, is ongoing, American officials said. But U.S. officials have downplayed the idea that the hackers stole sensitive information, insisting that no classified email or cloud systems were penetrated. The State Department’s cybersecurity team first discovered the intrusion. Multiple officials said the…

U.S. Agencies Breached in Cyberattack by Russian Ransomware Group

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A Russian ransomware group gained access to data from federal agencies, including the Energy Department, in an attack that exploited file transfer software to steal and sell back users’ data, U.S. officials said on Thursday. Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, described the breach as largely “opportunistic” and neither focused on “specific high-valuable information” nor as damaging as previous cyberattacks on U.S. government agencies. “Although we are very concerned about this campaign, this is not a campaign like SolarWinds that poses a systemic risk,” Ms.…