Microsoft Helped Ukraine Thwart Russian Cyberattacks

Microsoft revealed today that it detected a new round of Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine in the hours leading up to the invasion.

“We have provided threat intelligence and defensive suggestions to Ukrainian officials regarding attacks on a range of targets, including Ukrainian military institutions and manufacturers and several other Ukrainian government agencies,” Microsoft Brad Smith explains. “This work is ongoing.”

According to Smith, Microsoft is especially concerned with recent cyberattacks on Ukrainian civilian digital targets, including the financial sector, agriculture sector, emergency response services, humanitarian aid efforts, and energy sector organizations and enterprises.

“These attacks on civilian targets raise serious concerns under the Geneva Convention, and we have shared information with the Ukrainian government about each of them,” he notes. “We have also advised the Ukrainian government about recent cyber efforts to steal a wide range of data, including health, insurance, and transportation-related personally identifiable information (PII), as well as other government data sets.”

Microsoft has also shared the appropriate data with NATO officials in Europe and American officials in Washington.

“We will continue to share more detailed information publicly when we identify new malware that needs to be shared with the global security community,” Smith adds. “We will also continue to constantly update all of Microsoft’s services, including our anti-malware Defender service, to help protect against any potential spread of malware to other customers and countries. Our broader efforts to watch for cyberattacks are ongoing, and we will continue to advise Ukrainian cyber defense officials and assist them with their defenses.”

There’s a lot more to this, of course. But you can learn more from the original post.