U.S. Task Force Investigates Microsoft Hack Linked to China

The U.S. administration is expected to form a task force to deal with the major cyber attacks that Microsoft said were linked to China.

An official said the task force "UCG" is a multi-agency effort initiated by the National Security Council, including the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

"Everyone who runs these servers, whether government, the private sector or academia needs to act now to fix them," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday.

Microsoft said companies and government agencies in the United States that use Microsoft's email service have been compromised in a violent hacking campaign that was likely sponsored by the Chinese government.

The Cybersecurity Agency issued an emergency warning on Wednesday, amid concerns that the hacking campaign has affected thousands of targets, while cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs reported that the attack infected at least 30,000 Microsoft customers.

Hackers have targeted the largest possible number of victims online, hitting small businesses, local governments, and large credit unions, according to a cybersecurity researcher, who said the 'flaws used by the hackers, known as "zero-days", were previously unknown to Microsoft'.

Experts have been struggling to compare the breach to last year's hack by Russian hackers in what has become known as the SolarWinds attack.