Beijing slams ‘groundless’ hacking claim
Says US world leader in cyber attacks
BEIJING: China yesterday sharply denied US allegations it carried out a massive Microsoft hack, countering that Washington was the “world champion” of cyber attacks while raging at American allies for signing up to a rare joint statement of condemnation.
The United States on Monday accused Beijing of carrying out the cyber attack on Microsoft and charged four Chinese nationals over the “malicious” hack in March.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the attack on Microsoft Exchange, a top email server for corporations around the world, was part of a “pattern of irresponsible, disruptive and destabilising behaviour in cyberspace, which poses a major threat to our economic and national security”.
China’s Ministry of State Security, or MSS, “has fostered an ecosystem of criminal contract hackers who carry out both state-sponsored activities and cybercrime for their own financial gain”, Mr Blinken said in a statement.
In a simultaneous announcement, the US Department of Justice said four Chinese nationals had been charged with hacking the computers of dozens of companies, universities and government bodies in the United States and abroad between 2011 and 2018.
Pointing to the indictment, Mr Blinken said the United States “will impose consequences on [Chinese] malicious cyber actors for their irresponsible behaviour in cyberspace”.
President Joe Biden told reporters the United States was still completing an investigation before taking any countermeasures and drew parallels with the murky but prolific cybercrime attributed by Western officials to Russia.
“The Chinese government, not unlike the Russian government, is not doing this themselves, but are protecting those who are doing it, and maybe even accommodating them being able to do it,” Mr Biden told reporters.
In a step the Biden administration hailed as unprecedented, the United States coordinated its statement on Monday with allies — the European Union, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and Nato.
The Chinese embassy in New Zealand issued a swift rebuttal of the “totally groundless and irresponsible” allegations.
It was backed up by the embassy in Australia, as China took a coordinated stance of its own, accusing Canberra of “parroting the rhetoric of the US”.
“It is well known that the US has engaged in unscrupulous, massive and indiscriminate eavesdropping on many countries including its allies,” the embassy said in a statement.
“It is the world champion of malicious cyber attacks.”
Mr Biden, like his predecessor Donald Trump, has ramped up pressure on China, seeing the rising Asian power’s increasingly assertive moves at home and abroad as the main longterm threat to the United States.
Allies backed up the castigation of China with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab describing the cyberattack as “reckless”.
Nato offered “solidarity” over the Microsoft hacking without directly assigning blame, while noting that allies United States, Britain and Canada found China to be responsible.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said it was the first time that Nato — the Western military alliance whose members include Hungary and Turkey, which have comparatively cordial relations with Beijing — has condemned cyber activity from China.
It comes weeks after Nato took up China at a summit attended by Mr Biden.
“We know we’ll be stronger, we know we’ll be more effective when we act collectively,” Mr Price said, saying the US was not ruling out further action.
Mr Biden has promised a strategy driven by alliances to face Beijing, drawing a contrast with Mr Trump’s predilection for harsh rhetoric.
The Microsoft hack, which exploited flaws in the Microsoft Exchange service, affected at least 30,000 US organisations including local governments as well as organisations worldwide.
“Responsible states do not indiscriminately compromise global network security nor knowingly harbour cyber criminals — let alone sponsor or collaborate with them,” Mr Blinken said.