White House: China hacked Microsoft for infectious disease research

The White House has blamed China for several cyberattacks aimed at Microsoft's business email server, the Microsoft Exchange Server.

According to the White House website, the US, along with other allies such as the European Union, the United Kingdom, and NATO, are revealing how the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been conducting malicious cyber activity that is endangering national security. The statement from the White House says that the PRC has been using "contract hackers," and due to the lack of interest China has in taking responsibility for the hacks and stopping them, it's believed that they are intentional.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently published four indictments for four Chinese nationals over a hacking campaign that occurred between 2011 and 2018. The DOJ website states that the hacking campaign targeted the following industries; aviation, defense, education, government, health care, biopharmaceutical, and maritime. Additionally, the hackers obtained trade secrets, chemical formulas, sensitive technologies, proprietary genetic-sequencing technology.

Lastly, the DOJ website reads, "At research institutes and universities, the conspiracy targeted infectious-disease research related to Ebola, MERS, HIV/AIDS, Marburg and tularemia."

It was discovered that the four Chinese hackers were officers in the Hainan State Security Department, which is a provincial arm of China's Ministry of State Security. For more information on this story, check out this link here.