Microsoft says suspected Russian hackers viewed source code

Microsoft acknowledged on Dec 31, 2020 that attackers who spearheaded a massive hack of government and private computer networks gained access to its internal ‘source code’, a key building block for its software. But the US tech giant said the attack, which top US officials have attributed to Russian-led hackers, were unable to compromise or modify any of its software. — AFP

Microsoft Corp said the suspected Russian hackers behind the stunning breach of numerous US government agencies also accessed the company’s internal source code, although no customer data or services were compromised.

“We detected unusual activity with a small number of internal accounts and upon review, we discovered one account had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories,” Microsoft said Thursday in a blog post that updated its continuing investigation of the attack. “The account did not have permissions to modify any code or engineering systems and our investigation further confirmed no changes were made.”