Skip to content

'Outlook' hacked by Chinese government?

Many reports about hacking into ‘Outlook’ had many regular Outlook software users rightly worried, especially if they are in China, Hong Kong or Macau.

Don’t panic – a lot of the reporting was poorly worded and showed an ignorance of the difference between Outlook software (as sold/rented with Microsoft Office) and Outlook.com, Microsoft’s free email hosting service (formerly called Hotmail).

It was Outlook.com – the mail host that someone (mostly likely an agency of the Beijing government) managed to hack by intercepting login attempts to the site via email clients using POP or SMTP.  Direct web browser logins via outlook.com were not affected.

We don’t bore you with the details … GreatFire.org has all the gory details.

It wasn’t an attack on the Outlook.com servers directly but a ‘man in the middle’ MITM attack that let the bad guy see all the emails and detail that go between the user and Outlook.com.  They took over the certificate that confirms and encrypts the server connection to your computer.

That could happen with any email program or device that connected to your Outlook.com email because any of them will use POP or SMTP.  Outlook software was one of those programs.

Outlook.com wasn’t the first to be attacked in this way or by the same group.  Yahoo, Google and Apple have all been victim of similar MITM hacks.

Microsoft has now fixed this particular attack but it could happen again in the future. Predictably, the Chinese government has denied any involvement in the attack.

What to do?

We all need to be careful when you get a certificate security warning like this in Outlook:

Or similar warning on other devices with email connections.

Most of the time it’s quite innocent, for example a company has updated their server certificates (which is necessary every few years).  But it’s worth clicking ‘View Certificate’ and checking that the new certificate looks OK.  Ideally companies should have a web page detailing certificate changes so that wary users can verify the changes are legitimate – sadly few do that.

About this author

Office-Watch.com

Office Watch is the independent source of Microsoft Office news, tips and help since 1996. Don't miss our famous free newsletter.