Chinese Hackers Breached Email of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and State Department Officials

WASHINGTON—U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and senior officials at the State Department were victims of a newly discovered Chinese hacking campaign, American officials said Wednesday, a targeted spying effort in the spring that coincided with a Biden administration push to soothe rising tensions with Beijing.

The breaches of unclassified email systems, which some officials and experts said may have required extraordinary technical expertise to pull off, raise new alarms about the ability of Chinese hackers to orchestrate more sophisticated attacks and come at a fragile point in U.S.-China relations.