Russian hackers resume US cyber offensive, Microsoft says

The hackers distributed phishing emails, among them ‘Special Alerts’, declaring that Trump had published new documents on election fraud, and inviting the user to view them. — Pixabay

The Russian hackers behind the SolarWinds campaign have escalated their attacks on US federal agencies, think tanks and non-governmental organisations as part of intelligence gathering efforts on behalf of their government, Microsoft Corp said late on May 27.

In a blog post, Microsoft vice-president Tom Burt said this past week’s attack – which is still ongoing – granted access to about 3,000 email accounts at more than 150 organisations by infiltrating an digital marketing service used by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), called Constant Contact.