New York Post

China’s ‘ransom’ tantrum

- Mark Moore, Wires

China shot back at accusation­s by the United States and its allies that Beijing was behind a series of ransomware attacks and the hacking of Microsoft’s e-mail server this spring, dismissing the charge as “made up out of thin air” and claiming that the US “is the world champion of malicious cyber attacks.”

“The United States ganged up with its allies to make unwarrante­d accusation­s against Chinese cybersecur­ity,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Tuesday. “This was made up out of thin air and confused right and wrong. It is purely a smear and suppressio­n with political motives.”

The White House on Monday said the FBI and the National Security Agency have “high confidence” that Beijing’s Ministry of State Security contracted with hackers who used vulnerabil­ities in the Microsoft Exchange Server to carry out the cyberattac­ks in April, as well as conducting a campaign of ransomware attacks against private companies “for their own personal profit.”

The US was joined by Britain, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, NATO and the European Union to expose China’s “malicious cyber activities,” the White House said in a statement.

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