Microsoft has thwarted a series of attacks said to have been orchestrated by high-profile Russian point out-sponsored hacking group Extravagant Bear by redirecting their domains to a Microsoft-managed sinkhole, the tech giant uncovered on Thursday.
Also identified as APT28 or Strontium, Extravagant Bear is 1 of the most active APT teams in the earth, having performed a role in the 2016 hacking of the American presidential election and the cyber attack on the 2018 Winter season Olympics in Pyeongchang, amid numerous other people.
Functioning considering the fact that at the very least 2004, Fancy Bear has near ties to the Russian overseas military intelligence company GRU, and has turn into significantly involved in supporting Russia’s military services operations in cyber warfare.
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Microsoft published a blog write-up detailing its steps against the hacking team, which this 7 days was uncovered concentrating on Ukrainian media organisations, as perfectly as EU and US governing administration institutions and foreign coverage-involved consider tanks.
On 6 April, Microsoft secured a court order that allowed it to acquire command of 7 internet domains employed by Extravagant Bear to perform the attacks.
“We have since re-directed these domains to a sinkhole controlled by Microsoft, enabling us to mitigate Strontium’s present-day use of these domains and permit sufferer notifications,” the tech giant’s Shopper Security & Rely on company VP Tom Burt stated on Thursday.
In purchase to be certain speedy responses to Extravagant Bear’s attacks, Microsoft has also “established a authorized process” that lets the tech large to fast-keep track of court conclusions required to acquire more than the hacking group’s domains.
“Prior to this 7 days, we had taken action as a result of this course of action 15 times to seize manage of a lot more than 100 Strontium controlled domains,” claimed Burt.
Organisations aiding Ukraine or criticising the Russian federal government are deemed to be at optimum risk of getting compromised by Russian menace actors, the NCSC warned on 30 March, as it suggested enterprises to avoid applying Russian tech suppliers such as Kaspersky.
Microsoft’s results occur two weeks right after the US indicted 4 users of the Russian authorities above two independent cyber security incidents concerning 2012 and 2018 that targeted world critical infrastructure organisations. The alleged “conspiracies”, which incorporated the 2017 attack on a Saudi Arabian petrochemical facility, had been uncovered by joint endeavours of the UK and US.
Some sections of this article are sourced from:
www.itpro.co.uk