Air Force privacy probe underway amid potential SharePoint-related breach

Investigation into a "privacy-related issue" has been launched by the U.S. Air Force following a purported Air Force Personnel Center Directorate of Technology and Information alert indicating a Microsoft SharePoint breach that exposed personally identifiable information and protected health information, according to The Register.

Such a compromise has prompted the immediate blocking of all USAF SharePoint instances, as well as Teams and PowerBI dashboards claimed to have SharePoint access, the notice said. The Air Force has not confirmed the deactivation of SharePoint and Teams, while Microsoft has not disclosed the link between the incident and the sweeping SharePoint hack in July.

More than 400 entities, including a leading Western government, had their on-premises SharePoint servers infiltrated in attacks exploiting SharePoint flaws launched by Chinese state-sponsored cyberespionage operations and a ransomware gang over the summer. The U.S. previously had government emails stolen by Chinese state-backed hackers by targeting Microsoft's systems.