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The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a series of new financial sanctions aimed at interrupting the fast-growing technological links between China and Russia that American officials believe are a broad effort to rebuild and modernize Russia’s military during its war with Ukraine. The actions were announced just as President Biden was leaving the country for a meeting in Italy of the Group of 7 industrialized economies, where a renewed push to degrade the Russian economy will be at the top of his agenda. The measures were coordinated by the Treasury, State and Commerce Departments and aimed to further isolate Russia from the global financial system and cut off its ability to gain access to the technology that powers its military arsenal. The effort has grown far more complicated in the past six or eight months after China, which had previously sat largely on the sidelines, stepped up its shipments of microchips, machine tools, optical systems for drones and components for advanced weaponry, U.S. officials said. But so far Beijing appears to have heeded Mr. Biden’s warning against shipping weapons to Russia, even as the United States and NATO continue to arm Ukraine.

Persons: Biden Organizations: Wednesday, Treasury, State, Commerce, NATO Locations: China, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Beijing, United States

REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File photo Acquire Licensing RightsCompanies Microsoft Corp FollowWASHINGTON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Chinese hackers who breached Microsoft's (MSFT.O) email platform this year managed to steal tens of thousands of emails from U.S. State Department accounts, a Senate staffer told Reuters on Wednesday. The staffer, who attended a briefing by State Department IT officials, said the officials told lawmakers that 60,000 emails were stolen from 10 State Department accounts. U.S. officials and Microsoft said in July that Chinese state-linked hackers since May had accessed email accounts at around 25 organizations, including the U.S. Commerce and State Departments. The hackers compromised a Microsoft engineer's device, which allowed them to breach the State Department's email accounts, according to the briefing. The State Department did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Wednesday, and Schmitt wasn't available for an interview.

Persons: Kacper, Eric Schmitt, Microsoft's, Schmitt, Raphael Satter, Zeba Siddiqui, Leslie Adler Organizations: REUTERS, Microsoft Corp, WASHINGTON, U.S . State Department, State Department IT, Department, East, Microsoft, U.S . Commerce, State, State Department, ., The State Department, U.S . State, Commerce, Reuters, Thomson Locations: East Asia, Europe, China, Beijing

REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration Acquire Licensing RightsWASHINGTON, Sept 6 (Reuters) - The recently disclosed Chinese hack of senior officials at the U.S. State and Commerce departments stemmed from the compromise of a Microsoft engineer's corporate account, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said in a blog post on Wednesday. Microsoft said the engineer's account had been penetrated by a hacking group it dubs Storm-0558, which is alleged to have stolen hundreds of thousands of emails from top American officials including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, U.S. Microsoft said it had fixed the flaws that led to the key being accessible from the unidentified engineer's account which gave the hackers such wide latitude to steal emails. A Microsoft representative said the engineer's account had been hit using "token-stealing malware" but did not provide further detail about the incident or its timing. Beijing has previously described the allegation that it stole emails from top U.S. officials as "groundless narratives."

Persons: Kacper, Gina Raimondo, China Nicholas Burns, East Asia Daniel Kritenbrink, Raphael Satter, Jonathan Oatis, Sandra Maler, David Gregorio Our Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, U.S . State, Commerce, Microsoft, Microsoft Corp, State, East Asia, Embassy, Thomson Locations: China, Washington, Beijing

WASHINGTON, July 19 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) is expanding its suite of free security tools for customers, the software company said on Wednesday, following criticism that it was charging clients to protect themselves against Microsoft's mistakes. Microsoft's previous practice of charging for advanced versions of those tools has come under widespread criticism, especially following the recently disclosed hack at the U.S. State and Commerce Departments. That hack - which Microsoft later acknowledged was down to a breach and coding flaws - was only discovered because one of the victims spotted an anomaly while reviewing their digital logs. In a statement released alongside Microsoft's blog post, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency official Eric Goldstein said that "everyone wins" when security tools are provided free of charge. Charging for those tools "is a recipe for inadequate visibility into investigating cybersecurity incidents," Goldstein said.

Persons: Eric Goldstein, Goldstein, Raphael Satter, Josie Kao Organizations: Microsoft Corp, U.S, Microsoft, U.S . State, Commerce, Infrastructure Security Agency, Thomson

WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O) said on Friday that Chinese hackers misappropriated one of its digital keys and used a flaw in the company's code to steal emails from U.S. government agencies and other clients. The company said in a blog post that the hackers were able to use the key - which they acquired under undisclosed circumstances - and take advantage of "a validation error in Microsoft code" to carry out their cyberespionage campaign. The blog provided the most fulsome explanation yet for a hack that rattled both the cybersecurity industry and China-U.S. relations. Microsoft and U.S. officials said on Wednesday night that Chinese state-linked hackers had been secretly since May accessing email accounts at around 25 organizations. Microsoft's blog post did not explain how the hackers got their hands on one of the company's digital keys, leading some experts to speculate that Microsoft itself had been hacked ahead of the thefts.

Persons: Antony Blinken, China's, Wang Yi, Raphael Satter, Sandra Maler Organizations: Microsoft, State and Commerce, ., State Department, Thomson Locations: China, U.S, Beijing, Jakarta, Redmond, Washington

It can boost security, especially for small organizations that lack the resources to run their own IT or security departments. But competitors squeezed by Microsoft's security offering are sounding the alarm over how wide swaths of industry and government were effectively putting all their eggs in one basket. Adair said he understood that Microsoft wanted to make money from its premium security product. He noted that the hackers - which Microsoft nicknames Storm-0558 - were caught only because someone at the State Department with access to Microsoft's top-of-the-line logging noticed an anomaly in their forensic data. "Having Microsoft further empower customers and security companies so they can work together is probably the best way," Adair said.

Persons: Steven, Adair, Gina Raimondo, Microsoft, Ron Wyden, Redmond, Adam Meyers, CrowdStrike, Raphael Satter, Matthew Lewis Organizations: Microsoft, NASA, Reuters, U.S, State Department, Storm, Thomson Locations: cyberdefense, U.S, Washington

☆ Chinese Hackers Spied on State and Commerce Departments
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Dustin Volz | William Mauldin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

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Persons: Dow Jones

☆ U.S. and China wage war beneath the waves – over internet cables
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +28 min

Three of China’s state-owned carriers – China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom), China Mobile Limited and China United Network Communications Group Co Ltd (China Unicom) – had committed funding as members of the consortium, which also included U.S.-based Microsoft Corp and French telecom firm Orange SA, according to six people involved in the deal. China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom and Orange did not respond to requests for comment. China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom were resolutely behind HMN Tech, which had come in with a bid of around $500 million. China Telecom and China Mobile threatened to walk off the project, taking tens of millions of dollars of investment with them. Among them is China Telecom, which had previously won authorization to provide services in the United States.

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