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The
Russian group was able to access "a very small percentage" of
Microsoft corporate email accounts, including members of its
senior leadership team and employees in its cybersecurity,
legal, and other functions, the company said.
Microsoft's threat research team routinely investigates
nation-state hackers such as Russia's "Midnight Blizzard," who
they say is responsible.
The company said its probe into the breach indicated the hackers
were initially targeting Microsoft to learn what the technology
giant knew about their operations.
The company said the hackers used a "password spray attack"
starting in Nov. 2023 to breach a Microsoft platform. Hackers
use this technique to infiltrate a company's systems by using
the same compromised password against multiple related accounts.
The Russian Embassy in Washington and Ministry of Foreign
Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Microsoft said it investigated the incident and disrupted the
malicious activity, blocking the group's access to its systems.
"This attack does highlight the continued risk posed to all
organizations from well-resourced nation-state threat actors
like Midnight Blizzard," the company said, noting that the
attack was not the result of a specific vulnerability in it
products or services.
"To date, there is no evidence that the threat actor had any
access to customer environments, production systems, source
code, or AI systems," a company blog reads.
Microsoft's disclosure follows a new regulatory requirement
implemented by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
in December that mandates publicly-owned companies to promptly
disclose cyber incidents. Affected companies must file a report
about a hack's impact within four business days of discovery -
disclosing the time, scope and nature of the breach to the
government.
Midnight Blizzard is also known as APT29, Nobelium or Cozy Bear
by cybersecurity researchers and linked to Russia's SVR spy
agency, according to U.S. officials. The group is best known for
its intrusions of the Democratic National Committee surrounding
the 2016 U.S. election.
Microsoft products are widely used across the U.S. government.
The company faced criticism last year for its security practices
after Chinese hackers stole emails belonging to senior U.S.
State Department officials.
(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui and Harshita Mary Varghese; Editing
by Chris Sanders, Maju Samuel and Anna Driver)
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