Microsoft revealed that it discovered a new piece of malware dubbed “FoxBlade” on February 24, hours before Russia invaded Ukraine.
In a blog post, Microsoft President Brad Smith says his company is working to protect Ukrainian users with the Ukrainian government, the European Union, European countries, the US government, NATO and the United Nations.
Serial cyberattacks against Ukraine
“A few hours before the launch of the missiles or the movement of the tanks on February 24, the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) detected a new series of offensive and destructive cyberattacks directed against Ukraine’s digital infrastructure” , says Brad Smith.
“We immediately informed the Ukrainian government of the situation, including our identification of the use of new malware (which we have named FoxBlade), and we provided technical advice on the measures to be taken to prevent the success of this malware,” he continues.
“Over the past few days, we have been providing cyber threat intelligence and defense suggestions to Ukrainian officials. […] This work is ongoing. »
Targeted attacks
He notes that the cyberattacks against Ukraine that Microsoft found were extremely targeted and did not have the wide reach of the NotPetya attack, which took place in 2017.
Nevertheless, the leader clarified that Microsoft has observed recent cyberattacks on “Ukrainian civilian digital targets, including in the financial and agricultural sectors, emergency response services, humanitarian aid and organizations and companies in the sector of the sector. ‘energy’.
Microsoft also notified the Ukrainian government of efforts to steal government-sourced data, including health care information, insurance data, transportation data, and other personally identifiable information.
“Reduce the exposure of Russian propaganda”
Beyond helping Ukraine with cybersecurity, Microsoft has decided to take steps to “reduce exposure to Russian state propaganda, and to ensure that our own platforms don’t inadvertently fund these operations.
” In accordance with the recent EU decision, the Microsoft Start platform (including MSN.com) will not display any state-sponsored RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik content. We’re removing RT news apps from our Windows app store and further detuning search results for these sites on Bing so that they only return RT and Sputnik links when a user clearly intends to navigate to these pages. “, details Brad Smith.
“Finally, we ban all advertisements from RT and Sputnik across our entire ad network and will not place any advertisements from our ad network on these sites. »
Fighting disinformation campaigns
“As a company, we are also focused on protecting against state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, which have long been commonplace in wartime,” said Brad Smith.
“In recent days, we have witnessed a kinetic war accompanied by a well-orchestrated battle that is taking place in the information ecosystem and whose ammunition is misinformation, the weakening of truth and the seed of discord. and mistrust. This requires decisive efforts across the tech sector – both individually by companies and in partnership with others – as well as with governments, academia and civil society. “, he says.
The executive adds that Microsoft is working with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and several UN agencies on refugee support efforts.
Source: ZDNet.com