Democracy Dies in Darkness

Chinese hackers breach email of Commerce Secretary Raimondo and State Department officials

The State Department discovered the Microsoft vulnerability, which affected unclassified government systems, last month

Updated July 14, 2023 at 5:28 p.m. EDT|Published July 12, 2023 at 12:12 a.m. EDT
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo during a Senate Appropriations hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on May 16. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
6 min

Chinese cyberspies, exploiting a fundamental gap in Microsoft’s cloud, hacked email accounts at the Commerce and State departments, including that of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo — whose agency has imposed stiff export controls on Chinese technologies that Beijing has denounced as a malicious attempt to suppress its companies.

Raimondo is the only known Cabinet-level official to have their account compromised in the targeted cyberespionage campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the matter’s sensitivity.