Chinese hacking group breaches commerce secretary’s emails

A China-based hacking group breached U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo’s emails as part of a larger cyber-attack affecting over two-dozen organizations, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Both the Commerce and State Departments confirmed that some of its senior officials’ email accounts were hacked by a Chinese-based group – dubbed “Storm-0558” by Microsoft – which carried out a months-long cyber attack affecting roughly 25 global organizations, the WSJ reported. Raimondo, one of the first victims identified in the cyber attack, has been a vocal critic of Beijing and worked to impose sanctions on Chinese imports and exports.

Raimondo’s Commerce Department oversees the U.S. government’s “entity list,” which categorizes foreign businesses and individuals that are restricted from importing American technology without a proper license. The list currently includesover 600 Chinese entities, including the Harbin Institute of Technology and smartphone manufacturer Huawei.

“China’s government also gives unfair advantages to its own industries in ways that displace American workers and businesses – and those of our allies and partners – from the global market,” Raimondo said in a 2022 statement.

The U.S. says China hacked Gina Raimondo’s inbox—as the Commerce Secretary plans her trip to Beijing. Officials said the hack began in May amid an uptick in diplomacy between the two sides. “This was a targeted, surgical campaign.”@dnvolz @willmauldin https://t.co/MZ5IJGNUNg

— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) July 13, 2023

Microsoft confirmed that the cyber attack was initiated by China in mid-May and said in a statement on Tuesday it had been successfully mitigated. FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) officials said that the attack was intentional and narrowly targeted, and a CISA official said that nothing classified was breached in the attack, according to ABC.

“The targeting was intentional. This was an attack that was limited in scope and was not an attempt to compromise a broad array of organizations or accounts, as we have seen in other types of campaigns,” a CISA official said, according to ABC.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during a press conference Wednesday that the “US is the world’s biggest hacking empire and global cyber thief.”

CISA, Microsoft, the State Department and the Commerce Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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