US Representative Don Bacon said he is among those whose e-mails were hacked in an espionage campaign that Microsoft Corp has attributed to China.
Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska and a strong advocate for US military support to Taiwan, posted on social media that the FBI had notified him that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hacked into his personal and campaign e-mails over the course of a month, from May 15 to June 16.
“The CCP hackers utilized a vulnerability in the Microsoft software, and this was not due to ‘user error,’” he wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Photo: US House of Representatives via Reuters.
Bacon, a member of the US House Armed Services Committee, received an e-mail from Microsoft indicating he might have been hacked and advising him to change his password on June 16, said Maggie Sayers, Bacon’s press secretary.
The FBI did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs described claims about the hacking campaign as “false information.”
Bacon posted on X that he would “work overtime” to ensure US weapons sales to Taiwan.
The hack of Bacon’s e-mails was previously reported by the Washington Post.
As for why he was hacked, Bacon wrote: “I stand against the Uighur genocide and abuses in Tibet and Hong Kong. And, I support an independent Taiwan.”
Last month, Microsoft reported that China-based actors gained access to e-mail accounts affecting about 25 organizations including government agencies and consumer accounts of individuals likely associated with these groups.
US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo was among the US officials whose e-mails were breached and the e-mails of Nicholas Burns, US ambassador to China, were also breached, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The US Department of Homeland Security announced that a cybersecurity advisory panel is to investigate malicious targeting of cloud computing environments and Microsoft’s role in the breach.
AGGRESSION: China’s latest intrusions set a new benchmark for its ‘gray zone’ tactics and possibly a new pattern that it would attempt to normalize, a researcher said China’s latest military exercises represent a new challenge to Taiwan’s legal authority to demarcate its borders in the Taiwan Strait, a defense expert said, adding that the fleets in the latest exercises were likely the most powerful the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ever assembled. The PLA conducted military exercises from Sunday last week to 6am on Friday, which encompassed large swathes of the western Pacific, including the Taiwan Strait and waters off the Philippines and Guam, National Policy Foundation associate research fellow Chieh Chung (揭仲) said on Friday. The Ministry of National Defense said that it detected 70 warship and 162 aircraft
DOMESTIC MARKET: To protect the livelihoods of local egg farmers, the government adopted a new method for releasing imported eggs, the agriculture minister said More than 54 million imported eggs will be disposed, as their expiration date has passed, Minister of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said yesterday. Chen made the remarks at a news conference in Taipei, explaining the flow of imported eggs following recent controversies regarding the products. The ministry introduced a special egg import program to address a nationwide egg shortage earlier this year. However, controversies have risen in recent weeks. These included an accusation that the government helped some egg importing companies over others, eggs imported from Brazil that had an incorrect expiration date, and egg shipments from Brazil that were found
PACIFIC OCEAN: Defense experts have warned that the ‘Shandong,’ China’s second largest aircraft carrier, poses a serious threat to eastern Taiwan’s defenses The drills conducted by the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Western Pacific last week were more aimed at showcasing China’s military capabilities to the US rather than toward Taiwan, a Taiwanese defense expert said yesterday. Lin Yin-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said the drills which involved dozens of warplanes sought to test China’s anti-access and area denial capabilities should the US and its allies attempt to interfere in a cross-strait conflict. Lin said that the latest Chinese drills coincided with a joint maritime exercise conducted by the US, South Korea
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
RSS