A group of hackers supported by the Russian government has managed to break into Microsoft. The business email accounts of several directors at the top of the company were hacked, the American technology group announced on Friday.
The attack started in November but was only discovered last week. The hackers read messages and managed to download documents from attachments. According to Microsoft, a Russian group operating under the name ‘Nobelium’ is behind the cyber attack and which, according to the American and British intelligence services, is connected to the Russian secret service.
Microsoft has not announced who exactly were the victims of the hack. In addition to several directors, the emails of cyber security and legal department employees also fell prey to the Russians. Specialized medium The Verge says the hackers were likely looking for information about themselves. The same group was responsible for a large-scale attack in 2020 in which several (American) government services, Microsoft and thousands of other organizations were hacked.
It is not known how many employees in total were victims of the hackers. According to Microsoft, they penetrated “a small percentage” of all mailboxes. According to the latest figures from mid-2023, the company has approximately 221,000 employees.
Internal test account
The hackers got into the email system after cracking the password of an internal test account. According to Microsoft, there are no vulnerabilities in its products or services, and there are no indications that the hackers stole customer data, software source codes or artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
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