China-based hackers breached Western European government email accounts, Microsoft says

A China-based hacking group has broken into email accounts linked to government agencies in Western Europe, Microsoft Corp. said this week. The company said in a blog post published Tuesday that the group, which it identified as Storm-0558, engages in illegal acts such as espionage and data theft. The group gained access to email accounts affecting about 25 organizations including government agencies and to accounts of individuals linked to those organizations. The breach went undetected for about a month customers complained to Microsoft about abnormal mail activity. The hackers used forged authentication tokens required to access the email accounts to break in. Microsoft has since dealt with the attack and informed customers who were affected.