SolarWinds Hackers Breach Microsoft Customer Support to Target its Customers
In yet another sign that the Russian hackers who breached SolarWinds network monitoring software to compromise a slew of entities never really went away, Microsoft said the threat actor behind the malicious cyber activities used password spraying and brute-force attacks in an attempt to guess passwords and gain access to its customer accounts.
“This recent activity was mostly unsuccessful, and the majority of targets were not successfully compromised – we are aware of three compromised entities to date,” the tech giant’s Threat Intelligence Center said Friday. “All customers that were compromised or targeted are being contacted through our nation-state notification process.”
The development was first reported by news service Reuters. The names of the victims were not revealed.
The latest wave in a series of intrusions is said to have primarily targeted IT companies, followed by government agencies, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, and financial services, with 45% of the attacks located in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada.
Nobelium is the name assigned by Microsoft to the nation-state adversary responsible for the unprecedented SolarWinds supply chain attacks that came to light last year. It’s tracked by the wider cybersecurity community under the monikers APT29, UNC2452 (FireEye), SolarStorm (Unit 42), StellarParticle (Crowdstrike), Dark Halo (Volexity), and Iron Ritual (Secureworks).
The stolen customer information was subsequently used “in some cases” to launch highly-targeted attacks as part of a broader campaign, the company noted, adding it moved quickly to secure the device. Investigation into the incident is still ongoing.
The development also marks the second time the threat actor singled out Microsoft after the company disclosed earlier this February the attackers managed to compromise its network to view source code related to its products and services, including Azure, Intune, and Exchange.
