Microsoft says Russian state-backed hackers accessed its internal systems & code

Microsoft shared that while it has seen evidence of its source code repository being accessed, no customer-facing systems have been compromised yet.

Image via Microsoft
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It seems Microsoft is facing off against hackers backed by the Russian government, which may have accessed internal systems and source code at the company. Microsoft laid out details of such attacks by a state-backed group known as Midnight Blizzard. The group has reportedly been targeting Microsoft since 2023 and the company has seen evidence of its systems being accessed, though it adds that customer-facing systems haven’t been breached at this time.

Microsoft shared word of Midnight Blizzard’s hacking attempts in a press release on the company’s news blog this week.

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Microsoft has been facing a litany of hacking groups lately, including numerous state-backed groups using its AI products for hacking purposes.
Source: Microsoft

According to the company, this string of attacks has been going on actively since January 2024 (though Microsoft has been targeted by this group since late 2023):

Microsoft says its investigation into these attacks is ongoing, but the company has also claimed to bolster its investment into security and defense against such attacks. This also comes after Microsoft announced efforts to ban hacking groups from using its AI products after finding that Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China-backed groups had been utilizing them. Stay tuned as we continue to follow this story for further updates.

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

From The Chatty
    • reply
      March 8, 2024 10:23 AM

      they've been having issues for a few years now. there's probably a persistent access trojan at very very deep levels of MSFT. to get rid of it, they probably need to nuke every single system and every single subsystem, even shit like lighting and hvac controls etc (hvac controls are almost always running some insane old version of windows 3.1 with username: admin password blank - I administered these things for offices for years and the opsec people do routine scans and it's always insane how bad the security of these embedded/industrial/scada systems are)

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