Microsoft: Moscow-Backed Hackers Targeting Cloud Services

Microsoft says the same Russia-backed hackers responsible for the 2020 SolarWinds breach continue to attack the global technology supply chain and have been relentlessly targeting cloud service companies and others since summer, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Photo Insert: Microsoft noted that it had informed 609 customers that they had been attacked 22,868 times by Russian hacking group, Nobelium - more attacks than Microsoft had flagged from all nation-state actors in the previous three years.

The group, which Microsoft calls Nobelium, has employed a new strategy to piggyback on the direct access that cloud service resellers have to their customers’ IT systems, hoping to “more easily impersonate an organization’s trusted technology partner to gain access to their downstream customers.”

Resellers act as intermediaries between software and hardware makers and product users.

The Biden administration downplayed the impact of the Russian efforts. A US government official noted that “the activities described were unsophisticated password spray and phishing, 'run-of-the-mill' operations for the purpose of surveillance that we already know are attempted every day by Russia and other foreign governments.”

Microsoft has been observing Nobelium’s latest campaign since May and has notified more than 140 companies targeted by the group, with as many as 14 believed to have been compromised.

The attacks have been increasingly relentless since July, with Microsoft noting that it had informed 609 customers that they had been attacked 22,868 times by Nobelium, with a success rate in the low single digits.

That’s more attacks than Microsoft had flagged from all nation-state actors in the previous three years.

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