Microsoft Says Customer Affected By Email Hack

Microsoft says Russian hackers accessed its customers' emails during an attack earlier this year. It had previously only said Microsoft's own staff were victims.

The company has not yet said how many customers are affected but says it has contacted them with details of the attack.

Microsoft was breached by a group called Midnight Blizzard, believed to operate from Russia. The government there has not commented on the claims.

The new revelations follow a Microsoft announcement in January that a small proportion of its corporate email accounts had been accessed by Midnight Blizzard. The attacks continued for at least four months, though it's not clear how many, if any, were successful after the initial breach. (Source: reuters.com)

Messages Exposed

The good news, which is a comparative term in this case, is that the attack still doesn't seem to have affected any customer accounts of people who used Microsoft-based email services such as a live.com account.

Instead, Microsoft has confirmed the hackers were able to breach messages sent in both directions between Microsoft's corporate accounts and its customers. That could mean the hackers were able to see any sensitive information sent by customers to Microsoft.

Another significant risk is that the messages could have included details of technical or security problems that Microsoft customers had experienced. That could leave them more vulnerable to targeted attacks. It could also make it easier to pull of phishing attacks with criminals using the details to more credible pose as genuine Microsoft staff.

Secure System

The potential for harm, both to Microsoft customers and its reputation, has prompted it to set up a custom system for potential victims to see exactly what messages were compromised. Ironically that led to fears among some that the system, and the emails telling people to use it, was itself a phishing scam.

The Midnight Blizzard has previously been linked to an attack on a tech company called SolarWinds that involved inserting malicious code into a genuine software update. (Source: bloomberg.com)

What's Your Opinion?

Are you surprised by this news? Do you hold Microsoft responsible or is it not realistic to expect it to be unaffected by hacking attacks? Is there anything that can be done to stop state-backed hacking groups?