HONG KONG (AP) — China referred to as a Microsoft report {that a} China-based hacking group breached government-linked e mail accounts “disinformation,” saying Wednesday that the accusation was meant to divert consideration from U.S. cyber actions.

In a weblog publish revealed Tuesday, Microsoft mentioned the group, which it recognized as Storm-0558, gained entry to e mail accounts linked to 25 organizations, together with Western European authorities companies. The breach was detected weeks later when prospects complained to Microsoft about irregular mail exercise.

“We assess this adversary is focused on espionage, such as gaining access to email systems for intelligence collection,” Charlie Bell, Microsoft‘s government vice chairman of safety, mentioned in a separate Microsoft publish.

A Washington Post report cited a press release from U.S. officers claiming Storm-0558 additionally breached unclassified e mail accounts linked to the U.S. authorities. A Chinese international ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, mentioned the accusation was “disinformation” geared toward diverting consideration from U.S. cyberattacks on China.

“No matter which agency issued this information, it will never change the fact that the United States is the world’s largest hacker empire conducting the most cyber theft,” Wang mentioned in a routine briefing.

“Since last year, the cybersecurity organizations of China and other countries have issued many reports exposing the cyberattacks on China by the U.S. Government over a long period of time, but the U.S. has not made a response so far,” he mentioned.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who's on the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the place President Biden is, advised ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the investigation is ongoing.

“We detected it fairly rapidly and we were able to prevent further breaches,” Sullivan mentioned. “The matter is still being investigated, so I have to leave it there because we’re gathering further information in consultation with Microsoft and we will continue to appraise the public as we learn more.”

The Storm-0558 hackers used solid authentication tokens — items of knowledge used to confirm the identification of a consumer — required to entry the e-mail accounts, Microsoft mentioned. It mentioned it has handled the assault and knowledgeable affected prospects.

Microsoft mentioned it's working with the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, amongst others, to protect in opposition to such assaults. It additionally mentioned it might proceed to observe Storm-0558’s actions.

Last month, Google-owned cybersecurity agency Mandiant mentioned suspected state-backed Chinese hackers broke into the networks of a whole lot of private and non-private sector organizations globally by utilizing a safety gap in a well-liked e mail safety software.

Earlier this yr, Microsoft mentioned state-backed Chinese hackers had been focusing on U.S. important infrastructure and might be laying the technical groundwork to disrupt important communications between the U.S. and Asia throughout future crises.

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