[ad_1]
The campaign, which US officials believe is the work of Russian intelligence, began at least in March, but was discovered last week and involved several federal agencies.
A statement issued by several US agencies revealed that the piracy campaign is “ongoing”, leaving the door open to the possibility of an increase in the number of institutions that have been hacked and the magnitude of the damage suffered.
And Microsoft’s release is the first to provide detailed estimates of the extent of penetration. Although the company does not have a complete vision of the hacking campaign, it has a special vision thanks to the widespread use of “Windows” and the antivirus program “Defender” by governments and companies.
In a blog posted Thursday night, the Microsoft boss said that among the more than 40 organizations identified as severely affected, 80 percent were in the United States, but there were also victims in Belgium, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Spain. , United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom.
The company found that many of the victims are government agencies, but companies that have contracts with the government or think tanks and information and technology companies have also been repeatedly raped.
“Russia has a long history of launching these types of hacking operations against American companies and businesses,” Ali Breland, a journalist specializing in technology policy matters, told Sky News Arabia, “and this process has clear fingerprints of Russia.”
Breeland said Russia “is doing everything it can to hack American agencies and institutions, with the aim of causing chaos in the United States through leaks, and its hackers have the technical ability to cause harm.”
The expansion of the piracy campaign is astonishing, because it has affected a large group of victims, since the beginning of the attack last March, when the hackers took advantage of an update of a program developed by the company “Solar Windows” located in Texas, and used by thousands of companies and administrations around the world.
For his part, the expert in electronic crises, Jason Maloney, warned of the danger of the breach, and said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia” that “the operation was mainly aimed at the email systems of companies, which it can cause them great embarrassment, as happened in the North Korean mail hacking. Sony Corporation “.
Most of the hacked organizations are yet to be identified, but three entities have admitted that they have been hacked, namely the US Department of Commerce and Energy, in addition to the cybersecurity company “Fire Eye” which was the first to report the hacking campaign, and several other organizations were reported to have been hacked. But she herself did not confirm it.
A page on SolarWinds’ website listed more than 100 of its prominent government and commercial clients, but the page was removed Monday and none of the listed institutions acknowledged being hacked.
The expert, Maloney, expressed his hope that “the next American administration will pay more attention to the security of networks, electronic data and infrastructure, and will be able to find the identity of the perpetrators.” Russia, North Korea and China are likely to launch more cyberattacks in the United States.
Breland advises companies to take the necessary precautions, “filling in possible gaps in their electronic systems and conducting a careful periodic examination to see if they can be penetrated and to make sure that they are completely closed to hackers.”
