Microsoft Expands Political Cybersecurity Tool in Europe After Disclosing Attacks
20 Fevereiro 2019 - 05:13AM
Dow Jones News
By Donato Paolo Mancini
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said Wednesday that it will make a
political cybersecurity tool available for free to 12 new European
markets after it detected recent activity targeting democratic
institutions in Europe from a group that has been linked to
Russia.
The software giant said it has detected attacks targeting
employees of the German Council on Foreign Relations and the
European Offices of the Aspen Institute and the German Marshall
Fund, a public policy think tank that promotes cooperation between
North America and Europe. The company said the attacks, which it is
disclosing with the permission of those involved, targeted 104
accounts belonging to employees in Belgium, France, Germany,
Poland, Romania and Serbia.
While Microsoft continues to investigate the nature of the
attacks, it said it is confident many of them originated from a
group the company calls Strontium. Microsoft has previously linked
Strontium, also known as Fancy Bear or APT28, to the Russian
government. Fancy Bear has previously been accused of breaking into
systems of the Democratic National Committee in 2016. U.S.
government officials blamed Russia for those attacks. Russia has
denied involvement in the attacks.
Microsoft said the "spearphishing" attacks, which are also aimed
at political campaigns, took place between September and December
last year, and that it notified the victims quickly. Spearphishing
attacks involve the sending of links to targets from email
addresses that seem legitimate. The attacks usually aim to gain
access to sensitive information such as employee credentials, and
to deliver malware.
Microsoft's tool, known as AccountGuard, is a cybersecurity
service available to political candidates, parties and campaign
offices that operate locally or nationally. It is also available to
other institutions, such as think tanks, operating in civil
society, and is offered free of charge to organizations using
Office 365, a software suite. It provides early notification
services about security breaches, and can be extended to users
external to organizations with their consent.
"The attacks...seen recently...suggest an ongoing effort to
target democratic organizations," Microsoft said in a blog post on
Wednesday. "They validate the warnings from European leaders about
the threat level we should expect to see in Europe this year."
Microsoft is now making the tool available to France, Germany,
Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain. The service is already
available in the U.S., Canada, Ireland and the U.K., it said.
A number of elections are due to take in Europe this
year--including a general election in Spain, and an EU-wide
election in May to elect members of the European Parliament.
Write to Donato Paolo Mancini at
donatopaolo.mancini@dowjones.com; @donatopmancini
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 20, 2019 02:58 ET (07:58 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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