Today's D Brief: China’s MSFT hack; Bagram ‘ghost town’; China’s space program; Gamer leaks secret tank details; And a bit more.
By Ben Watson
July 19, 2021 10:40 AM ET
The D Brief
The United States and its allies say China was behind a disruptive and wide-ranging hack of Microsoft’s email system discovered back in March. The affected Microsoft Exchange Server had been in use across more than 30,000 organizations inside the U.S. alone, including defense contractors, cities, and local governments. The attack gave hackers access to email accounts and let them install malware, Microsoft said when it first learned of the breach—which even then it attributed with “high confidence to HAFNIUM, a group assessed to be state-sponsored and operating out of China.” Cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs reported at the time that the hackers “seeded hundreds of thousands of victim organizations worldwide with tools that give the attackers total, remote control over affected systems.”
But this new confrontation with China is about more than just the Microsoft hack. U.S. officials said they’re targeting a “pattern of malicious cyber activities” they view as “irresponsible,” “destabilizing,” and “a major threat to the U.S. and allies’ economic and national security.” Those activities allegedly include “cyber-enabled extortion, crypto-jacking, and theft from victims around the world for financial gain,” officials told reporters Sunday.
There are at least two new and notable elements to Monday’s cyber messaging from the White House:
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/07/the-d-brief-july-19-2021/183856/
