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WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is expected to formally accuse the Chinese government on Monday of violating Microsoft messaging systems used by many of the world’s largest companies, governments and military contractors, according to a senior administration official. The United States is also set to organize a large group of allies, including all NATO members, to condemn Beijing for cyber attacks around the world.
The official, who requested anonymity, added that the United States must accuse China for the first time of paying criminal groups to carry out large-scale hacks, including ransomware attacks to extort millions of dollars. to companies. Microsoft had singled out hackers linked to China’s State Security Ministry for exploiting loopholes in the company’s messaging systems in March; the US announcement will provide details of the methods used, and it is the first suggestion that the Chinese government has hired criminal groups to work on its behalf.
The condemnation of NATO and the European Union is unusual, as most of their member countries have been deeply reluctant to publicly criticize China, a major trading partner. But even Germany, whose companies have been hit hard by the hack of Microsoft Exchange – email systems that companies maintain themselves, rather than putting them in the cloud – has cited the Chinese government for its work.
Despite the mess, the announcement will lack concrete punitive measures against the Chinese government, such as sanctions similar to those the White House imposed on Russia in April, when it blamed the country for the massive SolarWinds attack that has affected US government agencies and more than 100 companies.
By imposing sanctions on Russia and organizing allies to condemn China, the Biden administration has plunged deeper into a digital cold war with its two main geopolitical adversaries than at any time in modern history.
While there is nothing new about digital espionage on Russia and China – and Washington’s efforts to block it – the Biden administration has been surprisingly aggressive in calling out both countries and organizing a coordinated response.
But so far, he has yet to find the right mix of defensive and offensive actions to create effective deterrence, according to most outside experts. And the Russians and the Chinese have become more daring. The SolarWinds attack, one of the most sophisticated ever detected in the United States, was an effort by the main Russian intelligence service to modify the code of widely used network management software to access more than 18,000 businesses, federal agencies and think tanks.
China’s effort was not as sophisticated, but it took advantage of a vulnerability that Microsoft had not discovered and used it to conduct espionage activities and undermine confidence in the security of the systems that it did. companies use it for their primary communications. It took months for the Biden administration to develop what officials say is “high confidence” that the hack into Microsoft’s messaging system was done at the behest of the Department of State Security, the Department of State Security said. senior administration official, and encouraged by private actors who had been hired by the Chinese secret service.
The hack affected tens of thousands of systems, including military contractors.
The last time China was caught in surveillance on such a scale was in 2014, when it stole more than 22 million security clearance files from the Bureau of Personnel Management, allowing for an understanding depth of the lives of Americans who are allowed to retain control of the nation. secrets.
President Biden has vowed to fortify the government, making cybersecurity a goal of his summit meeting in Geneva with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin last month. But her administration was faced with questions about how she would also deal with the growing threat from China, especially after Microsoft’s hack was publicly exposed.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, the senior administration official admitted that China’s public condemnation would do little to prevent future attacks.
“No action can change China’s behavior in cyberspace,” the official said. “And a single country could not act alone either.”
But the decision not to impose sanctions on China was also revealing: it was a step many allies would not agree to take.
Instead, the Biden administration decided to rally enough allies to join in on China’s public denunciation to maximize pressure on Beijing to reduce cyber attacks, the official said.
The joint statement criticizing China, to be released by the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, the European Union, Japan and New Zealand, is unusually broad. It is also the first NATO statement to publicly target Beijing for cybercrime.
The National Security Agency and the FBI are expected to reveal more details on Chinese “tactics, techniques and procedures” in cyberspace on Monday, such as how Beijing hires criminal groups to carry out attacks for the benefit of its government, said. the manager.
The FBI took an unusual step in hacking Microsoft: in addition to investigating the attacks, the agency obtained a court order allowing it to enter unpatched corporate systems and remove items from code left by Chinese hackers that could allow tracking attacks. . It was the first time the FBI had intervened to remedy an attack and investigate its perpetrators.
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