Microsoft: SolarWinds hackers target 150 orgs with phishing

While the SolarWinds campaign, which infiltrated dozens of private sector companies and think tanks as well as at least nine US government agencies, was supremely stealthy and went on for most of 2020 before being detected in December by the cybersecurity firm FireEye, this campaign is what cybersecurity researchers call noisy. Easy to detect. — AFP

BOSTON: The state-backed Russian cyber spies behind the SolarWinds hacking campaign launched a targeted spear-phishing assault on US and foreign government agencies and think tanks this week using an email marketing account of the US Agency for International Development, Microsoft said.

The effort targeted about 3,000 email accounts at more than 150 different organizations, at least a quarter of them involved in international development, humanitarian and human rights work, Microsoft Vice President Tom Burt said in a blog post late Thursday.