Microsoft struggling to fight off Russian cyberspies

Microsoft is still struggling to keep out the Russian cyberspies that gained high-level access to the company late last year, the company announced Friday.

Microsoft is still struggling to keep out the Russian cyberspies that gained high-level access to the company late last year, the company announced Friday.

Those hackers have in recent weeks gained access to some key company secrets, including digital vaults where the company keeps source code for some of its programs, the company said in a blog post.

Microsoft said the hackers are members of a group that the cybersecurity industry and U.S. and U.K. government agencies widely associated with Russia’s SVR intelligence agency, which is roughly analogous with the U.S. National Security Agency. The U.S. has said the SVR was responsible for the SolarWinds hacking campaign of 2020, one of the most expansive and successful cyberespionage campaigns against the U.S. government discovered to date.

A spokesperson for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The extent of valuable information that the hackers took is unclear, and a Microsoft spokesperson declined to share more information. But the ongoing hacking campaign is particularly noteworthy because Microsoft plays a crucial role in the U.S. Federal government systems and the company’s artificial intelligence research is some of the most advanced in the world.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/microsoft-struggling-fight-russian-cyberspies-rcna142558

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