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WASHINGTON – A new alliance of NATO member states, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and Japan is coming together to address the global threat posed by cyber attacks sponsored by the ‘Chinese state.
In its first joint action on Monday, the alliance will publicly accuse China’s State Security Ministry of a massive cyberattack on Microsoft Exchange mail servers earlier this year.
The attack was carried out by hackers working for the MSS who also engage in extortion, cryptojacking and ransomware, the official said.
The group will share intelligence on cyberthreats and collaborate on defenses and network security, said a senior Biden administration official who requested anonymity to discuss a national security effort.
Also on Monday, the FBI, National Security Agency and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a new advisory listing 50 tactics, techniques and procedures used by Chinese state-sponsored hackers.
The brazen attack on the Microsoft Exchange server became public in March and is believed to have affected at least 30,000 US organizations and hundreds of thousands more around the world.
Microsoft quickly identified the group behind the hack as a relatively unknown Chinese spy ring dubbed Hafnium.
So far, the United States has stopped publicly blaming Beijing for the attack.
Part of the delay in naming China was to give investigators time to gather the evidence to prove that the Hafnium hackers were in the hands of the Chinese state, the official said.
It was also important for the United States to act in concert with its allies when they made the public attribution, the official said.
At a time when cyber warfare becomes the front line in a global power struggle between democracies and autocratic states, the New Alliance for Cyber Security could become a model for future efforts to address transnational threats.
Monday’s joint announcements build on efforts by President Joe Biden earlier this summer to rally support from NATO and EU allies for a more confrontational approach by China.
They also come amid a growing number of economic and diplomatic sanctions that the Biden administration has imposed on Beijing this year, in response to alleged human rights violations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang province.
The United States on Friday sanctioned seven Chinese officials in response to Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong’s democratic institutions.
The United States has also issued a business advisory, warning American companies of potential data and privacy breaches by the Chinese government if they continue to do business in Hong Kong.
In response, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the United States of “meddling” in its internal affairs.
For now, the new cybersecurity alliance focuses on cooperative security and threat alerts, not retaliation.
The White House has referred to Microsoft’s attacks to senior Chinese government officials, “making it clear that the [People’s Republic of China] actions threaten security, confidence and stability in cyberspace, ”the senior official said.
But Beijing’s economic power in the world makes it extremely difficult for a group of countries to agree on concrete actions against China.
“We do not rule out other actions to keep [China] responsible, “said the senior official,” but we are also aware that no action can change the behavior of the PRC, and neither can a country act alone. So we really focused initially on bringing other countries with us. “
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