Microsoft reports that the Russian hackers and espionage organizations behind the interference in the 2016 presidential election have stepped up again — targeting political parties, their advisers, and American human rights activists.
According to a Microsoft blog, since September 2019, Russian hackers from Strontium — better known as Fancy Bear or APT28 — have focused their efforts on more than 200 different organizations. The blog authors add that it has become more difficult to track them, since after 2016 hackers are more diligently covering their tracks using at least 1,000 different IPs.
Presumably, China and Iran are also attempting to hack Microsoft accounts that belong to individuals associated with political campaigns. However, according to experts, their attacks on both the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign have not yet been crowned with success.
“We believe that Russian military intelligence is the biggest foreign threat in the upcoming elections. Said John Haltqvist, director of intelligence analysis at cybersecurity firm FireEye. «We are very concerned that they are again targeting campaign-related organizations.»
photo: flickr / Gage Skidmore
