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Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) each just lately disclosed that they suffered company e-mail breaches by the hands of Russia’s “Midnight Blizzard” hackers.
The group, which is tied to the Kremlin’s SVR international intelligence, is particularly linked to SVR’s APT 29 Cozy Bear, the gang that meddled in the US 2016 presidential election, has carried out aggressive authorities and company espionage around the globe for years, and was behind the notorious 2021 SolarWinds provide chain assault. Whereas each HP’s and Microsoft’s breaches got here to mild inside days of one another, the state of affairs primarily illustrates the continued actuality of Midnight Blizzard’s worldwide espionage actions and the lengths it’ll go to to search out weaknesses in organizations’ digital defenses.
“We should not be stunned that Russian intelligence-backed menace actors, and SVR specifically, are focusing on tech firms like Microsoft and HPE. With organizations that dimension, it might be a a lot larger shock to study they weren’t,” says Jake Williams, a former US Nationwide Safety Company hacker and present college member on the Institute for Utilized Community Safety.
HP Enterprise stated in a US Securities and Trade Fee submission posted on Wednesday that Midnight Blizzard gained entry to its “cloud-based e-mail surroundings” final 12 months. The corporate first discovered concerning the state of affairs on December 12, 2023, however stated that the assault started in Might 2023. Hackers “accessed and exfiltrated information … from a small share of HPE mailboxes belonging to people in our cybersecurity, go-to-market, enterprise segments, and different features,” the corporate wrote within the SEC submitting. HP Enterprise stated the breach doubtless happened as the results of one other incident, found in June 2023, through which Midnight Blizzard additionally accessed and exfiltrated firm “SharePoint” recordsdata starting as early as Might 2023. SharePoint is a much-targeted cloud collaboration platform made by Microsoft that integrates with Microsoft 365.
“The accessed information is restricted to info contained within the HPE customers’ e-mail containers,” HP Enterprise spokesperson Adam Bauer instructed WIRED in a press release. “We proceed to research and analyze these mailboxes to determine info that might have been accessed and can make applicable notifications as required.”
In the meantime, Microsoft stated on Friday that it detected a system intrusion on January 12 tied to a November 2023 breach. The attackers focused and compromised some historic Microsoft system take a look at accounts that then allowed them to entry “a really small share of Microsoft company e-mail accounts, together with members of our senior management staff and staff in our cybersecurity, authorized, and different features.” From there the group was capable of exfiltrate “some emails and connected paperwork.” Microsoft famous in its disclosure that the attackers seemed to be in search of details about Microsoft’s investigations and data of Midnight Blizzard itself.
“The assault was not the results of a vulnerability in Microsoft services or products. To this point, there isn’t a proof that the menace actor had any entry to buyer environments, manufacturing techniques, supply code, or AI techniques,” the corporate wrote in its disclosure. “This assault does spotlight the continued threat posed to all organizations from well-resourced nation-state menace actors like Midnight Blizzard.”
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