Chinese hackers steal 6,000 sensitive emails from 10 employees of US State Department

Hackers reportedly linked to the Chinese government stole around  60,000 emails from the unclassified inboxes of the employees of the US Department of State. The hacker received access to the email accounts of 10 employees from the State Department earlier this summer. On Wednesday, a readout on the issue was presented at a Senate staff briefing, Politico reported.

The reports of hacking the data of the US State Department came two months after Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s emails were hacked by Chinese-based hackers.

One of the staffers of the US Senator Eric Schmitt told Politico that the revelations were made during a Capitol Hill briefing. State Department Chief Information Officer Kelly Fletcher told the gathering that the hackers focused on the employees who were dealing with the Indo-Pacific diplomatic efforts.

While nine of the 10 accounts belonged to the officials who focused on the highly contentious region, the other official was focusing on America’s diplomatic ties with Europe. Some of the most sensitive information stolen by the hackers included victims’ travel itineraries and diplomatic deliberations, Politico reported. 

As per the news outlet, roughly three dozen Republican and Democratic staffers attended the meeting. The State Department believes that the hackers could access the victims’ social security numbers. “The agency takes seriously its responsibility to safeguard its information and continuously takes steps to ensure information is protected.

Like every large organization with a global presence, we closely monitor cybersecurity conditions,” a spokesperson from the US State Department told local reporters. However, the State Department had not formally blamed the Chinese government for the data breach. 

Raimondo didn’t hold back 

In June this year, it was reported that Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s emails were hacked by Chinese hackers. According to Politico, the email was hacked through a vulnerability in Microsoft email systems.

In light of the data breach, the US official openly blamed China for hacking her emails during her visit to Beijing, NBC News reported. Following the incident, The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI put out a joint advisory urging officials to remain careful. “Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agency identified suspicious activity in their Microsoft 365 (M365) cloud environment.

The agency reported the activity to Microsoft and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Microsoft determined that advanced persistent threat (APT) actors accessed and exfiltrated unclassified Exchange Online Outlook data,” the advisory reads. ‘Organisations that identify suspicious, anomalous activity should contact Microsoft for proceeding with mitigation actions due to the cloud-based infrastructure affected, as well as report to CISA and the FBI,” the statement further reads.