Britain's National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ, is urgently investigating a Beijing-backed hacking campaign over fears that sensitive secrets were compromised, and is working with Microsoft to check whether UK organisations were hit by the group 'Storm-0940'. Microsoft said China-state-aligned hackers used AI to target hundreds of organisations worldwide, including in defence, energy, finance, government and technology. US firm ConnectWise was compromised, forcing its cloud backup service for Microsoft 365 email and files to be suspended, and it has notified the UK's data watchdog, which is assessing the breach. ConnectWise said there is no sign stored backups were compromised, but switching off the service does not remove attackers' existing access to customer systems. Microsoft said the group has used AI for attacks since at least September, sometimes gaining cloud access in under three hours, while a PHP flaw found by AI agents triggered millions of hacking attempts and led governments and companies to take websites offline to patch it.
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cybersecurityartificial intelligenceChinaMSFT
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Related tickers and likely impact
MSFT
• NeutralMicrosoft
Relevance: low
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Information Technology |
| Industry | Systems Software |
| Market cap | $4.0T |
| Close on 10/23/2026 | 524.53 |
| Change that session | +0.66% |
Impact is scored by AI from the headline and may be wrong. It is not investment advice.
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