Microsoft said on Thursday that Russia’s long-range cyber attack Of US government agencies and private companies have gone further into its network than previously disclosed by the company.
The company said that while the hackers, suspected of working for SVR, Russia’s intelligence agency, did not appear to be using Microsoft’s systems to attack other victims, they were able to view some of Microsoft’s source code by hacking an employee’s account.
Microsoft said earlier it was not violated in the attack, which affected dozens of federal agencies as well as companies. Microsoft said its subsequent investigation revealed that the hackers were unable to access the emails or their products and services, and that they were unable to modify the source code that they saw.
The Russian attack, which may be ongoing, appears to have started since October 2019. That was when hackers first hacked a company in Texas called SolarWinds that provides network monitoring services to government agencies and 425 Fortune 500 companies. The trade, treasury, foreign, and energy departments were breached in attack , As was FireEye, A leading cybersecurity company first revealed the hack this month.
Investigators are still trying to understand what the hackers stole, but investigations by FireEye, Microsoft, Amazon and other companies have revealed that the attack may have a much greater scope than originally thought. Last week, CrowdStrike, one of FireEye’s competitors, announced that it had also been targeted, to no avail, by the same attackers. In this case, Hackers use Microsoft vendors, Companies selling software on behalf of Microsoft to try to access IT systems.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that SolarWinds was one of several methods the Russians used to attack US agencies, technology and cybersecurity companies.
President-elect Joseph R Biden Jr. accuse President Trump To reduce the importance of a breakout. Mr Trump described the attack privately as a “hoax”. Publicly, he suggested that China, not Russia, might have been the culprit – a finding that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo opposed.
This is a developing story and it will be updated.
