Chinese hackers breached State Dept., other government email on eve of Blinken visit, officials say

By FRANK BAJAK and MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say state-backed Chinese hackers foiled Microsoft’s cloud-based security and hacked the email of officials at multiple U.S. agencies that deal with China ahead of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing last month. The surgical, targeted espionage accessed the mailboxes of a small number of individuals at an unspecified number of U.S. agencies and was discovered by the State Department. Officials said none of the breached systems were classified. The hack was disclosed late Tuesday by Microsoft, which said email accounts were haced at about 25 organizations globally beginning in mid-May. A U.S. official said the number of U.S. organizations impacted was in the single digits.