Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Microsoft: Russian Hackers *Are* Targeting The Midterms
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/07/20/russian-hackers-target-three-mid-term-candidates-says-microsoft/#55e50b12725dRussian hackers are back targeting American democracy. This time it’s the midterm elections. And three congressmen are the targets.
Tom Burt, corporate vice president for customer security and trust at Microsoft, told delegates at an Aspen Security Forum in Colorado Thursday that Russian hackers had registered a fake Microsoft website earlier this year. It was a phishing website and unspecified “metadata” indicated it was set up to target three candidates for the 2018 midterms. Burt didn’t have many more specifics, though he said the phishing page was targeted at the candidates’ staffs.
Phishing pages are sites that look legitimate but aren’t. They typically either trick victims into handing over passwords or attempt to download malware onto their computer. In the attacks on the Clinton campaign, for instance, fake Gmail messages were sent to the candidate’s staff, asking them to change their passwords. The emails took targets to a fake Google page controlled by the hackers.
It was unclear whether the midterm hackers were the same as those believed by American intelligence agencies to have broken into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. Burt did, however, previously refer to a hacker crew his company calls Strontium (more commonly referred to as Fancy Bear), which Microsoft had attempted to disrupt.
“They [the congressmen] were all people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint as well as an election disruption standpoint,” he said. “We don’t know the answer.”
Tom Burt, corporate vice president for customer security and trust at Microsoft, told delegates at an Aspen Security Forum in Colorado Thursday that Russian hackers had registered a fake Microsoft website earlier this year. It was a phishing website and unspecified “metadata” indicated it was set up to target three candidates for the 2018 midterms. Burt didn’t have many more specifics, though he said the phishing page was targeted at the candidates’ staffs.
Phishing pages are sites that look legitimate but aren’t. They typically either trick victims into handing over passwords or attempt to download malware onto their computer. In the attacks on the Clinton campaign, for instance, fake Gmail messages were sent to the candidate’s staff, asking them to change their passwords. The emails took targets to a fake Google page controlled by the hackers.
It was unclear whether the midterm hackers were the same as those believed by American intelligence agencies to have broken into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. Burt did, however, previously refer to a hacker crew his company calls Strontium (more commonly referred to as Fancy Bear), which Microsoft had attempted to disrupt.
“They [the congressmen] were all people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint as well as an election disruption standpoint,” he said. “We don’t know the answer.”
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
