00:00 Chinese espionage operation has reportedly made a direct hit on the US.
00:15 Reports said that Beijing linked hackers' access to US ambassador to China, Nicholas
00:19 Burns' email account.
00:21 The spy operation is reported to have compromised at least hundreds of thousands of individual
00:25 US government emails.
00:28 The Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, was also hacked.
00:33 Reports said that the wider spying operation was disclosed earlier this month by Microsoft.
00:38 Earlier before the reports of the spy operation appeared, Kritenbrink was asked at a congressional
00:43 hearing on US-China policy whether he could rule out that his or his staff's emails
00:49 were targeted in the Microsoft hack.
00:51 Kritenbrink said that he couldn't rule out the possibility of being targeted.
00:56 Burns and Kritenbrink have joined US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo as the only publicly
01:02 named victims of the espionage campaign.
01:05 It prompted an issuance of a warning by Washington's top diplomat to his Chinese counterpart.
01:11 Spokesperson for China's embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, stated that China firmly opposes
01:17 and combats cyberattacks and cyber theft in all forms.
01:21 He pointed out that identifying the source of cyberattacks is a complex technical issue.
01:27 He spoke on behalf of China when he said that they hoped relevant sides will adopt a professional
01:32 and responsible attitude rather than making what he called "groundless speculations
01:37 and allegations."
01:39 Last week, Microsoft said that Chinese hackers misappropriated one of its digital keys and
01:44 used a flaw in its code to steal emails from US government agencies and other clients.
01:50 The breach has thrown Microsoft's security practices under scrutiny.
01:54 Last week, White House National Security Council Spokesperson Adam Hodge said that an intrusion
02:00 in Microsoft's cloud security affected unclassified systems.
02:04 He added that officials immediately contacted Microsoft to find the source and vulnerability
02:09 in their cloud service.
02:10 At the time, a department spokesperson said that the State Department detected anomalous
02:14 activity and took immediate steps to secure their systems.
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