April 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board

is expected to issue a report detailing lapses by Microsoft ( MSFT )

that led to a targeted Chinese hack of top U.S.

government officials' emails last year, the Washington Post

reported on Tuesday.

The intrusion, which ransacked the Microsoft Exchange

Online mailboxes of 22 organizations and more than 500

individuals around the world, was "preventable" and "should

never have occurred", the Washington Post

said

, citing the report.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) and the Cyber Safety Review Board did not

immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Last year, the tech giant

said

the Chinese hack of senior officials at the U.S. State and

Commerce departments stemmed from the compromise of a Microsoft ( MSFT )

engineer's corporate account penetrated by a hacking group it

dubbed Storm-0558.

The hack is

alleged

to have stolen hundreds of thousands of emails from top

American officials including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo,

U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and Assistant Secretary

of State for East Asia Daniel Kritenbrink.

The Cyber Safety Review Board's report blames shoddy

cybersecurity practices, lax corporate culture and a deliberate

lack of transparency over what Microsoft ( MSFT ) knew about the origins

of the breach, according to the Washington Post.