Gofrixty [23 July 2025] – Chinese government hackers have exploited a hacking attack to infiltrate at least several thousand American companies in recent years as part of a wide-ranging campaign, US officials said Tuesday. The tech company said its cybersecurity unit monitored several cases where attackers exploited unpatched SharePoint servers in the systems breach.
The hackers employed sophisticated methods to look for weaknesses in tens of thousands of systems, both public and private, the company said. Once they found a vulnerability, they launched malicious code to gain entry, take data and move through the network.
Microsoft referred to the hacking group as “Storm-0558”, a well known actor behind other cyber-espionage activities. The group, Microsoft said, is primarily concerned with collecting intelligence and stealing data, particularly from government, defense and financial organizations.
Microsoft security experts revealed a technical description of the vulnerability and an urgent advice for all users. They recommended that administrators install the latest updates and search the networks for indications of compromise.
United States and European cybersecurity agencies acted fast in responding to Microsoft’s alert. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an alert and immediately started collaborating with federal departments and major infrastructure to secure their systems. European cyberdefenders did the same and initiated their own scans.
