Microsoft accuses China for hacking its Exchange mail server

Microsoft said that its Exchange email product had been compromised by Chinese hackers by a state-sponsored threat actor named Hafnium. Tom Burt, Microsoft's corporate vice president of customer security and trust, wrote in a blog post that the company had identified a "state-sponsored threat actor" it referred to as "Hafnium.

Tom Burt said, typically uses virtual servers located in the US to infiltrate vulnerable institutions, including infectious-disease researchers, law firms, higher education institutions, and NGOs.

According to Burt, the hacking group took advantage of several security vulnerabilities within the email client to steal data and plant malware, and more alarmingly, to compromise servers running Exchange.

Once Hafnium made its way inside company servers, it could create a "web shell" to control servers remotely and steal data from company networks.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin responded to Microsoft's accusations in a Wednesday press briefing, saying there was not enough evidence to draw a conclusion on the Exchange hack's origins.