TECH NEWS – The group known as Midnight Blizzard may have been causing trouble for the Redmond company since late 2023.

On Friday, Microsoft announced that Russian state-sponsored hackers had gained access to some source code sets and internal systems. The company found no evidence that Microsoft-hosted systems available to consumers were compromised. The hackers used a password spray attack in November (which increased tenfold in January-February…) to gain access to the tech giant’s email system, which allowed them to access some company accounts, according to Microsoft. Back in January, Microsoft announced that its security team had detected an attack and identified Midnight Blizzard, which was linked to the Russian government.

“In recent weeks, we have seen evidence that Midnight Blizzard is using information originally exfiltrated from our corporate email systems to gain or attempt to gain unauthorized access. This has included access to some of the company’s source code repositories and internal systems. To date, we have found no evidence that any customer-facing systems hosted by Microsoft have been compromised. It is apparent that Midnight Blizzard is attempting to use secrets of various types that it has found.

Some of these secrets were shared between customers and Microsoft via email, and since we discovered them in our exfiltrated email, we have been and are reaching out to these customers to help them take mitigating actions. It may be using the information it has obtained to build up a picture of areas where it can attack and improve its ability to do so. This is a reflection of what has generally become an unprecedented global threat landscape, particularly in terms of sophisticated nation-state attacks,” Microsoft wrote.

The company added that its security has been bolstered to protect against the ongoing threat, and that Microsoft will continue to do so. Some data has fallen into unauthorized hands, and who knows how it will be used.

Source: VGC, Microsoft