Security News > 2023 > July > Microsoft Thwarts Chinese Cyber Attack Targeting Western European Governments

Microsoft on Tuesday revealed that it repelled a cyber attack staged by a Chinese nation-state actor targeting two dozen organizations, some of which include government agencies, in a cyber espionage campaign designed to acquire confidential data.

"They focus on espionage, data theft, and credential access," Microsoft said.

The breach is said to have been detected a month later on June 16, 2023, after an unidentified customer reported the anomalous email activity to Microsoft.

The access to customer email accounts, per Redmond, was facilitated through Outlook Web Access in Exchange Online and Outlook.com by forging authentication tokens.

Microsoft has since blocked the usage of tokens signed with the acquired MSA key in OWA to mitigate the attack.

"This type of espionage-motivated adversary seeks to abuse credentials and gain access to data residing in sensitive systems," Charlie Bell, executive vice president of Microsoft Security, said.

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https://thehackernews.com/2023/07/microsoft-thwarts-chinese-cyber-attack.html