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Microsoft Security Politics

Microsoft Says Discovers Hacking Targeting Democratic Institutions in Europe (reuters.com) 71

Posted by msmash from the security-woes dept.
Microsoft said today it had discovered hacking targeting democratic institutions, think tanks and non-profit organizations in Europe and plans to offer a cyber security service to several countries to close security gaps. From a report: The hacks occurred between September and December 2018, targeting employees of the German Council on Foreign Relations and European offices of The Aspen Institute and The German Marshall Fund, the company said. Microsoft said it found out about the hacks through the company's Threat Intelligence Center and Digital Crimes Unit, and the hacks targeted 104 employee accounts in Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Romania, and Serbia. Hackers in most cases create malicious weblinks and spoofed email addresses that look legitimate, aiming to gain access to employee credentials and deliver malware, the company said.
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Microsoft Says Discovers Hacking Targeting Democratic Institutions in Europe More

Microsoft Says Discovers Hacking Targeting Democratic Institutions in Europe

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  • this is why (Score:5, Funny)

    by zlives ( 2009072 ) on Wednesday February 20, 2019 @01:42PM (#58152746)

    this is why i never trusted the Discovers credit card, not that AMEX is much better but at least they are not Hacking...

  • *facepalms* (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Slashdot says discovers English. Says much English with headlines soon. Maybe says grammar next!

  • Steve Martin was right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ItsJustAPseudonym ( 1259172 ) on Wednesday February 20, 2019 @01:51PM (#58152814)

    Microsoft Says Discovers Hacking Targeting Democratic Institutions in Europe

    Steve Martin was right when he said: "Some people have a way with words. Other people...not have way."

    • Come now, it's just a missing apostrophe. Microsoft is clearly stating that Discover's hacking is targeting democratic institutions in Europe.

  • Hire a competent editor. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20, 2019 @01:51PM (#58152816)

    Who the fuck is writing these headlines? Sloth feom the Goonies?

  • I'm not sure who Discovers is, but at least communist, socialist, and even monarchist institutions aren't being impacted.

  • None of those are democratic institutions (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20, 2019 @02:11PM (#58152934)

    There is nothing democratic about them. Two of them are literally Americans trying to steer European politics. All of them have been founded to exert more than their fair share of political influence.

    • Ineed, the title should be "Microsoft Says Discovers Hacking Targeting Lobby Institutions in Europe "

  • Democratic Party in the US.

    In fact the "attacked" sites don't even seem to be EU democrats.

    I wonder if the people being attacked because they have something in common, like using Microsoft tools to provice web access. /s

  • the hacks targeted 104 employee accounts in Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Romania, and Serbia. Hackers in most cases create malicious weblinks and spoofed email addresses that look legitimate, aiming to gain access to employee credentials and deliver malware, the company said.

    Phishing right?

    Not hacking. Maybe if it was Targeted Phishing, but the article doesn't mention that. It just says they create malicious weblinks, and spoofed email addresses to get employee credentials and install malware. They don't say where the weblinks were, but I'm guessing people got emails with embedded links that users followed.

    Sorry, but I get at least 4 of these e-mails a day which get caught by the spam filter. I would recommend they get a better spam filter. I would also recommend a ro

  • I'm willing to guess there was a particular state actor directing the hacking. I would have been more surprised if the article was about Russia and/or China finding ways to support western democracies rather than undermining them.

  • I had problems signing into slashdot the last couple of days. I kept getting stuck in a loop, punctuated only by some GDPR form, but whenever I hit enter, I'd get sent right back to the login screen. No matter what scripts I allowed, cookies cleared, or settings I adjusted, I couldn't sign in. Was it the GDPR form? Was it the website? My browser? I kinda resigned myself to not using slashdot any more (despite it being one of the first sites I used when I got onto the internet many years ago) after it all go

    • I use safescript, I allow only the *.slashdot.org the $hash.cloudfront.net and a.fsdn.com and adblock block everything. I however live in the US so maybe it was something with your IP? Next time try a free(or trial) vpn plugin or something like tunnelbear which lets you select output regions.

  • "Microsoft" also says they've detected my computer is infected with malware and I need to type certain things in so they can remotely debug and disinfect it. At least that's what the nice man with the Indian accent says when he calls me several times a week.

    Maybe that's the same company that provides Microsoft support that is closing down and needs me to call them back to get a refund on my service contract?

  • So Microsoft will help to secure ? Ah ah ah.
    I would prefer to ban all proprietary software from any public organization... Or continue to pay Microsoft consultancy to fix Microsoft bugs.

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