Biden admin to set up task force for Microsoft hack linked to China

According to sources, President Joe Biden`s administration is expected to put together a task force to deal with major cyber intrusions that Microsoft said this week were linked to China as relations between the two -- Washington and Beijing -- continues to spiral downwards. It has been reported that there are an estimated 30,000 affected customers in the US and 250,000 globally, though those numbers are expected to increase.

A White House official said, "We are undertaking a whole of government response to assess and address the impact. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an emergency directive to agencies and we`re now working with our partners and looking closely at the next steps we need to take. This is an active threat still developing and we urge network operators to take it very seriously. Unified Coordination Group" (UCG), is a multi-agency effort initiated by the National Security Council, that includes FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and others. The National Security Agency also has a role in the response, though it`s not clear if its involvement is codified as part of the UCG directive, according to another source familiar with the situation."

The Hill reported that Cybersecurity group FireEye on Thursday night announced it had found evidence that hackers had exploited a flaw in a popular Microsoft email application since as early as January to target groups across a variety of sectors.

FireEye analysts wrote in a blog post that the company had observed the hackers -- who Microsoft announced earlier this week were a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group known as "Hafnium" -- exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft`s Exchange Server email program to target at least one FireEye client beginning in January.

The NCSC wrote that US health data was an attractive target for the Chinese government due to the diversity of the population and because of the nation`s comparably lax safeguards for personal data.Under the Trump administration, ties between the two countries had deteriorated over issues such as human rights violations in Xinjiang, encroachment on the special status of Hong Kong, accusations of unfair trade practices by Beijing, lack of transparency concerning the pandemic and China`s military aggression in various parts of the world.