Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s email was reportedly breached by Chinese hackers.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller confirmed during a press briefing on Wednesday that hackers breached the department’s systems, though he was hesitant to reveal further information. Anonymous U.S. officials told the New York Times that the hackers were Chinese and likely connected to the state’s intelligence services, and they targeted individual email accounts. Another anonymous official told the Washington Post that the account of Raimondo was hacked in connection with the breach.
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The commerce secretary’s email was the only account of a significant official that was hacked, they added.
The hack was achieved by exploiting a gap in Microsoft’s cloud before the breach was fixed roughly one month ago.
The targeting of Raimondo comes as the Commerce Department has imposed export controls on Chinese technologies, a move that drew China’s ire.
In addition to Raimondo and other officials, hackers targeted the accounts of a congressional staffer, a human rights advocate, and U.S. think tanks, the sources added.
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U.S. officials who spoke with the New York Times stressed that no classified information was accessed in the hack.
The hack reportedly occurred during Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing, possibly straining relations between the two countries.
