Russian hackers attack 42 countries

Microsoft security experts have been investigating Russian cyber activities since the start of the Ukraine war, revealing a comprehensive and far-reaching campaign of attacks and deception. They have now presented their results in a comprehensive report.

Apparently, Russian intelligence services and state hackers weren’t just concentrating on weakening Ukrainian targets. Rather, Russia also tried to penetrate the networks of other countries supporting Ukraine on a large scale.

In total, attacks on 128 targets in 42 countries have been registered in the past four months. The main target was the USA, followed by NATO members that are closest to Ukraine – such as Poland or the Baltic States. Microsoft also lists Germany as one of the attacked countries.

About half of the attacks were directed against state institutions

Around half of the attacks were apparently aimed at state institutions, around twenty percent each against companies from the critical infrastructure sectors and against IT companies. The remaining attacks were directed against non-governmental organizations. According to Microsoft, almost one in three of these attacks was successful.

The spread of Russian propaganda has also increased massively. Above all, attempts are being made to establish various false news about Covid-19 in Western countries. According to Microsoft, corresponding operations in Canada and New Zealand over the past six months have caused loud public resistance to Covid measures.

The main lesson learned over the past four months is that defending against a military invasion also requires a country to be able to distribute digital operations and critical data across the border to servers outside its country. In this way, malware that paralyzes local PCs and servers cannot cause too much damage.