New Russian hacks

Microsoft detects rogue group trying to influence midterms

MICROSOFT said yesterday it had uncovered new Russian hacking attempts targeting US political groups ahead of the midterm elections.

The company said that a hacking group tied to the Russian government created fake internet domains that appeared to spoof two American conservative organisations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute.

Three other fake domains were designed to look as if they belonged to the US Senate.

Microsoft didn’t offer any further description of the fake sites.

The revelation came just weeks after a similar Microsoft discovery led Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who is running for re-election, to reveal that Russian

hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network.

The hacking attempts mirror similar Russian attacks ahead of the 2016 election, which US intelligence officials have said were focused on trying to elect Republican Donald Trump to the presidency by hurting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

This time, more than helping

one political party over another, “this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, said in an interview this week.

Mr Smith said there was no sign the hackers were successful in persuading anyone to click on the fake websites, which could have exposed a target victim to computer infiltration,

hidden surveillance and data theft.

Microsoft calls the hacking group Strontium; others call it Fancy Bear or APT28.

An indictment from US special counsel Robert Mueller has tied it to Russian’s main intelligence agency, known as the GRU, and to the 2016 email hacking of both the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.