• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

United Natural Foods Expects $400M revenue impact from June cyber attack

 | 

Cisco patches critical CVE-2025-20337 bug in Identity Services Engine with CVSS 10 Severity

 | 

UNC6148 deploys Overstep malware on SonicWall devices, possibly for ransomware operations

 | 

Operation Eastwood disrupted operations of pro-Russian hacker group NoName057(16)

 | 

Salt Typhoon breach: Chinese APT compromises U.S. Army National Guard network

 | 

Former US Army member confesses to Telecom hack and extortion conspiracy

 | 

CVE-2025-6554 marks the fifth actively exploited Chrome Zero-Day patched by Google in 2025

 | 

DDoS peaks hit new highs: Cloudflare mitigated massive 7.3 Tbps assault

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Wing FTP Server flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Android Malware Konfety evolves with ZIP manipulation and dynamic loading

 | 

Belk hit by May cyberattack: DragonForce stole 150GB of data

 | 

North Korea-linked actors spread XORIndex malware via 67 malicious npm packages

 | 

FBI seized multiple piracy sites distributing pirated video games

 | 

An attacker using a $500 radio setup could potentially trigger train brake failures or derailments from a distance

 | 

Interlock ransomware group deploys new PHP-based RAT via FileFix

 | 

Global Louis Vuitton data breach impacts UK, South Korea, and Turkey

 | 

Experts uncover critical flaws in Kigen eSIM technology affecting billions

 | 

Spain awarded €12.3 million in contracts to Huawei

 | 

Patch immediately: CVE-2025-25257 PoC enables remote code execution on Fortinet FortiWeb

 | 

Wing FTP Server flaw actively exploited shortly after technical details were made public

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • APT
  • Breaking News
  • Cyber warfare
  • Data Breach
  • Hacking
  • Intelligence
  • Chinese threat actors stole around 60,000 emails from US State Department in Microsoft breach

Chinese threat actors stole around 60,000 emails from US State Department in Microsoft breach

Pierluigi Paganini September 29, 2023

China-linked threat actors stole around 60,000 emails from U.S. State Department after breaching Microsoft’s Exchange email platform in May.

China-linked hackers who breached Microsoft’s email platform in May have stolen tens of thousands of emails from U.S. State Department accounts, a Senate staffer told Reuters this week.

During a briefing by U.S. State Department IT officials, officials told lawmakers that threat actors stole at least 60,000 emails from a 1 total of 10 State Department accounts. The accounts belong to State Department officials who were working in East Asia, the Pacific, and Europe.

“The State Department individuals whose accounts were compromised mostly focused on Indo-Pacific diplomacy efforts, and the hackers also obtained a list containing all of the department’s emails, according to the Wednesday briefing.” reported Reuters.

According to the officials, none of the stolen emails were classified.

“it was approximately 60,000 unclassified emails that were exfiltrated as a part of that breach. No, classified systems were not hacked. These only related to the unclassified system” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. “We have not made an attribution at this point, but, as I said before, we have no reason to doubt the attribution that Microsoft has made publicly. Again this was a hack of Microsoft systems that the State Department uncovered and notified Microsoft about.”

In July, Microsoft announced it had mitigated an attack conducted by a China-linked threat actor, tracked as Storm-0558, which targeted customer emails.

Storm-0558 threat actors focus on government agencies in Western Europe and were observed conducting cyberespionage, data theft, and credential access attacks. The attack was reported by a customer on June 16, 2023. The investigation revealed that the attack began on May 15, 2023, when Storm-0558 gained access to email accounts affecting approximately 25 organizations, including government agencies as well as related consumer accounts of individuals likely associated with these organizations.

The attackers forged authentication tokens to access user email using an acquired Microsoft account (MSA) consumer signing key.

Microsoft researchers discovered that the threat actors gained access to customer email accounts using Outlook Web Access in Exchange Online (OWA) and Outlook.com by forging authentication tokens to access user email.  

The attackers used an acquired MSA key to forge the tokens to access OWA and Outlook.com. The attackers exploited a token validation issue to impersonate Azure AD users and gain access to enterprise mail.

In early September, Microsoft shared a comprehensive technical investigation into the way attackers gained access to the Microsoft account consumer signing key.

The company discovered that threat actors stole a signing key used to breach government email accounts from a Windows crash dump after compromising a Microsoft engineer’s corporate account.

Microsoft discovered that the MSA key was accidentally leaked into a crash dump after a consumer signing system crashed in April 2021.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Microsoft)


facebook linkedin twitter

China Cyberespionage data breach Hacking hacking news information security news IT Information Security Microsoft Pierluigi Paganini Security Affairs Security News U.S. State Department

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini July 17, 2025
United Natural Foods Expects $400M revenue impact from June cyber attack
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini July 17, 2025
Cisco patches critical CVE-2025-20337 bug in Identity Services Engine with CVSS 10 Severity
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    United Natural Foods Expects $400M revenue impact from June cyber attack

    Security / July 17, 2025

    Cisco patches critical CVE-2025-20337 bug in Identity Services Engine with CVSS 10 Severity

    Security / July 17, 2025

    UNC6148 deploys Overstep malware on SonicWall devices, possibly for ransomware operations

    Hacking / July 17, 2025

    Operation Eastwood disrupted operations of pro-Russian hacker group NoName057(16)

    Cyber Crime / July 16, 2025

    Salt Typhoon breach: Chinese APT compromises U.S. Army National Guard network

    Intelligence / July 16, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT