Microsoft Executives’ Emails Hacked by Group Tied to Russian Intelligence


An elite hacking group sponsored by Russian intelligence gained entry to the emails of a few of Microsoft’s senior executives starting in late November, the corporate disclosed in a weblog submit and regulatory submitting on Friday.

Microsoft mentioned it had found the intrusion per week in the past and was nonetheless investigating. The hackers appeared to deal with combing by means of Microsoft’s company e-mail accounts to search for info associated to the hacking group, which Microsoft’s researchers known as Midnight Blizzard.

The hackers appeared by means of emails from Microsoft’s senior management crew in addition to staff in cybersecurity, authorized and different teams, and took some emails and attachments, the corporate mentioned. The corporate, which had labored with cybersecurity corporations and governments to research earlier assaults by the hacking group, didn’t title the executives whose emails had been focused.

The Russian International Intelligence Service has run the hacking group since at the least 2008, in accordance to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company. The group is understood by quite a lot of nicknames, together with Cozy Bear, the Dukes and A.P.T. 29, and has been behind plenty of high-profile hacks, in keeping with earlier U.S. authorities investigations.

Targets have included the computer systems of the Democratic Nationwide Committee in 2015 and the tech provider SolarWinds, which allowed Russia to achieve entry to methods on the State Division, the Division of Homeland Safety and components of the Pentagon in 2020. Microsoft known as that incident “probably the most refined nation-state cyberattack in historical past.”

The tactic used within the new hack seems to be much less unique — a comparatively primary tactic often known as password spraying, wherein hackers attempt frequent passwords on an enormous array of accounts. The group, which has been recognized to make use of this tactic, discovered a gap in an outdated account for a testing system, after which used that account’s permissions to achieve entry to the company e-mail accounts, Microsoft mentioned.

“Thus far, there is no such thing as a proof that the menace actor had any entry to buyer environments, manufacturing methods, supply code or A.I. methods,” Microsoft mentioned in a press release.

The regulatory submitting mentioned the corporate had notified and was working with legislation enforcement.

Microsoft, which provides know-how to many Western governments, has lengthy been the goal of nation-state hacking. Final yr, Chinese language hackers breached Microsoft’s methods and gained entry to the e-mail accounts of Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo and different authorities officers.

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