Microsoft has now warned against an ongoing "sophisticated" attack from Russia-based threat actors targeting government agencies, think tanks, consultants, NGOs and its customers across the globe. The latest attack by the group named 'Nobelium' has targeted around 3,000 email accounts across 150 organisations.
Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President, Customer Security and Trust at Microsoft, said, "While organisations in the United States received the largest share of attacks, targeted victims span at least 24 countries. At least a quarter of the targeted organisations were involved in international development, humanitarian, and human rights work."
"Many of the attacks targeting our customers were blocked automatically, and Windows Defender is blocking the malware involved in this attack. We're also in the process of notifying all of our customers who have been targeted," he also informed.
'Nobelium' launched the attacks by gaining access to the Constant Contact account of USAID.
Constant Contact is a service used for email marketing. From there, the actor was able to distribute phishing emails that looked authentic but included a link that, when clicked, inserted a malicious file used to distribute a backdoor we call NativeZone.
Nine federal agencies and about 100 private sector companies were compromised as a result of the SolarWinds hack.
See What’s Next in Tech With the Fast Forward Newsletter
Tweets From @varindiamag
Nothing to see here - yet
When they Tweet, their Tweets will show up here.