UK and allies hold the Chinese state responsible for a pervasive pattern of hacking

The UK joins like-minded partners to confirm Chinese state-backed actors were responsible for gaining access to computer networks via Microsoft Exchange servers.

The attacks took place in early 2021, affecting over a quarter of a million servers worldwide.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said:

The cyber attack on Microsoft Exchange Server by Chinese state-backed groups was a reckless but familiar pattern of behaviour.

The Chinese Government must end this systematic cyber sabotage and can expect to be held account if it does not.

The attack was highly likely to enable large-scale espionage, including acquiring personally identifiable information and intellectual property. At the time of the attack, the UK quickly provided advice and recommended actions to those affected and Microsoft said that by end of March that 92% of customers had patched against the vulnerability.

The UK is also attributing the Chinese Ministry of State Security as being behind activities known by cybersecurity experts as “APT40” and “APT31”.

Widespread, credible evidence demonstrates that sustained, irresponsible cyber activity emanating from China continues.

The Chinese government has ignored repeated calls to end its reckless campaign, instead of allowing its state-backed actors to increase the scale of their attacks and act recklessly when caught.

This coordinated action sees the international community once again urge the Chinese government to take responsibility for its actions and respect the democratic institutions, personal data and commercial interests of those with whom it seeks to partner.

The UK is calling on China to reaffirm the commitment made to the UK in 2015 and as part of the G20 not to conduct or support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property of trade secrets.

The National Cyber Security Centre has assessed that: