Microsoft Outlook Email Hacked In China

Microsoft’s Outlook email platform was hacked in China over the weekend, compromising the security of thousands of Chinese users.

Chinese censorship watchdog GreatFire.org said that people using email clients such as Outlook and Mozilla’s Thunderbird with SMTP and IMAP protocols were hacked by ‘man-in-the-middle’ attacks on Saturday.

Perpetrated by the Cyberspace Administration of China?

GreatFire.org has said that the attacks were most likely perpetrated by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC).

The website said: “If our accusation is correct, this new attack signals that the Chinese authorities are intent on further cracking down on communication methods that they cannot readily monitor.”

Man-in-the-middle attacks typically piggybacks a connection which means the perpetrator can monitor the activity of the user.

Last week, the CAC shut down 50 websites which have violated the country’s Internet regulations.

The websites, which include 17 public pages on the mobile messaging app Weixin, 24 other websites and 9 columns on websites, were closed by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), which said that the websites were closed because of violations such as pornography to ‘publishing political news without a permit’.