I would like to think their methods can be qualified for access to government and private organizations that exist to promote candidates for elections. Microsoft should develop a unit that will work with organizations to protect from such invasive problems. The fact the US Senate was hacked is more than a concern, it is a national security problem.
THANK YOU, MICROSOFT.
August 21, 2018
By Alex Ward
The elite Russian military intelligence unit (click here) that interfered in the 2016 US presidential election has been trying to hack its way deeper into America’s politics. But there’s good news: Microsoft thwarted the effort.
According to Microsoft president Brad Smith, Russian government hackers created six websites that purposely tried to mimic those of certain conservative US think tanks, the Senate, and even Microsoft itself. The goal was to trick people into clicking through those fake pages, thereby allowing the hackers to steal information from the visitors. Microsoft says it found those sites — created within the past few weeks — and seized them after obtaining a court order to do so, rendering the sites useless to the hackers.
The company crucially noted it has yet to see any evidence that the websites formed part of a successful attack, and it’s unclear if the Russian operatives sought information from specific people. However, it’s completely possible that the fake pages carried malware, thereby allowing the Russians access to the computers of unfortunate visitors.
But the identities of both the hunters and the prey here are important....
By Alex Ward
The elite Russian military intelligence unit (click here) that interfered in the 2016 US presidential election has been trying to hack its way deeper into America’s politics. But there’s good news: Microsoft thwarted the effort.
According to Microsoft president Brad Smith, Russian government hackers created six websites that purposely tried to mimic those of certain conservative US think tanks, the Senate, and even Microsoft itself. The goal was to trick people into clicking through those fake pages, thereby allowing the hackers to steal information from the visitors. Microsoft says it found those sites — created within the past few weeks — and seized them after obtaining a court order to do so, rendering the sites useless to the hackers.
The company crucially noted it has yet to see any evidence that the websites formed part of a successful attack, and it’s unclear if the Russian operatives sought information from specific people. However, it’s completely possible that the fake pages carried malware, thereby allowing the Russians access to the computers of unfortunate visitors.
But the identities of both the hunters and the prey here are important....
