Russian SolarWinds hackers launch email attack on government agencies

The state-backed Russian cyber spies behind the SolarWinds hacking campaign launched a targeted phishing assault on US and foreign government agencies and thinktanks this week using an email marketing account of the US Agency for International Development (USAid), Microsoft has said.

The effort targeted about 3,000 email accounts at more than 150 organisations, at least a quarter of them involved in international development, humanitarian and human rights work, the Microsoft vice-president Tom Burt wrote in a blogpost on Thursday.

Microsoft identified the attack’s perpetrators as Nobelium, a group originating in Russia that was also behind the attacks on SolarWinds customers in 2020. “Nation-state cyber-attacks aren’t slowing,” Burt wrote. “We need clear rules governing nation-state conduct in cyberspace and clear expectations of the consequences for violation of those rules.”