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Hackers raid US foreign affairs servers

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A break-in targeting US State Department computers worldwide last summer occurred after a department employee in Asia opened a mysterious e-mail that allowed hackers inside the government's network.

In the first public account revealing details of the intrusion and the government's hurried secret response, a senior State Department official described an elaborate ploy by sophisticated international hackers. Their entry exploited a design flaw in Microsoft software.

Consumers using the same software remained vulnerable until months later.

A limited amount of data was stolen until 'tripwires' severed all the department's internet connections throughout eastern Asia. The shut off left US government offices without internet access in the tense weeks before missile tests by North Korea, said Donald Reid, the senior security co-ordinator for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

Mr Reid was scheduled to testify yesterday at a cyber-security hearing before a House of Representatives Homeland Security sub-committee. He was expected to tell lawmakers an employee in the department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs - which co-ordinates diplomacy in countries including China, the Koreas and Japan - opened a rigged e-mail message in late May that gave hackers access to the network.

Mr Reid was not expected to disclose the identities or nationalities of the hackers believed to have been responsible for the break-ins or to disclose whether US authorities believed a foreign government was responsible.

The department struggled with the break-ins between May and early July. The panel's chairman, Democratic Congressman James Langevin, called cyber-security an often-overlooked line of defence. 'Since much of our critical infrastructure is dependent on computers and networks and is interconnected and interdependent, a cyber-attack could disrupt major services and cripple economic activity.'

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