August 27, 2021
A recent Microsoft Exchange hack attributed to the Chinese hacking group Hafnium could be more than just an attempt to spy, according to some experts.
Microsoft suffered a surge of cyberattacks and data breaches after four zero-day exploits were discovered on-site in Microsoft Exchange servers in January. The attack gave the hackers full access to the servers, in addition to user emails and passwords and administrator privileges.
In interviews with several experts, NPR found that email and intellectual property theft may be related to something larger. China reportedly has high ambitions for artificial intelligence, and some believe that the Chinese government wants to become the world’s leader in artificial intelligence innovation and performing jobs that traditionally require human intelligence.
Kiersten Todt, the former executive director of the bipartisan commission on Cybersecurity during the Obama administration, said, “There is a long-term project underway. We don’t know what the Chinese are building, but what we do know is that diversity of data, quality of data aggregation, accumulation of data is going to be critical to its success.”
For more information, read the original story on NPR.
