As reported by Reuters, Microsoft raised suspicions about a group of hackers who were trying to invade the company's systems. The group is allegedly supported by Russia and its name is Midnight Blizzard. The company founded by Bill Gates believes that hackers used previously stolen information from corporate emails.
The objective would be to access “some of the company's source code repositories and internal systems”, as Microsoft reported, in a document that was transmitted to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (via CNN).
Out of curiosity, Microsoft's source code tends to be attractive to malicious software companies. This is because it contains the most important data about how a given program works.
Microsoft had already denounced Midnight Blizzard in January
Remember that, before this complaint from Microsoft, the month of January had already brought problems with Midnight Blizzard. The misappropriation of data occurred, practically simultaneously, with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), which was also a victim of the same company that would be linked to the Russian state.
As reported by CNN, HPE warned, at the time, that hackers had breached cloud-based email systems. Thus, it is possible to see that Microsoft is not the only one targeted, even though the reasons behind this illegal activity are not known for sure.
In any case, the same source of information points out that experts in the field link the Midnight Blizzard with large data collection campaigns in support of the Kremlin.
Illustrative Image (via Microsoft and Pexels)
Hackers will have had access to Homeland Security and Justice departments
There are strong suspicions that the aforementioned hacker group was using software produced by SolarWinds. The evidence points to the strong possibility that they had, for several months, access to email accounts from the departments of Homeland Security and Justice. All this, before they were discovered.
US authorities establish a link between these criminal actions and Russia. The Russian embassy in Washington, in turn, did not comment on the situation.
The situation worries Microsoft, which, in a publication made by the company itself, states the danger that information could be used “to accumulate an image of the areas to be attacked and increase its ability to do so”.
In any case, as Reuters reports, there is currently no evidence that Microsoft systems have been compromised by hackers.