National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the Chinese hackers who breached email accounts of multiple U.S. government agencies did not get any classified federal information.
“The intrusion here was actually into Microsoft’s cloud system. And they got into that system and then through that, into the unclassified email accounts of U.S. government officials. And I stress these were unclassified e-mail accounts, so they did not get any classified information,” Sullivan told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
U.S. officials said state-backed Chinese hackers broke into the accounts of individuals at an unspecified number of U.S. agencies, including the State Department, ahead of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s trip to Beijing last month.
“It was actually the U.S. government that discovered the hack, and we did because we have increased our cyber defenses over the course of the past couple of years,” Sullivan said. “We discovered it, we quickly shut it down and now we have taken the steps to make sure this is not an ongoing vulnerability.”
The discovery was made in mid-June, according to U.S. officials. While officials did not specify exactly who was hacked, The Washington Post, citing unidentified U.S. officials, reported Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was the only known Cabinet-level official to have their account compromised in the breach.
Sullivan emphasized on Sunday these incidents have occurred for a “long time,” throughout multiple administrations.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.