Cybersecurity
Microsoft Exchange Used to Hack Diplomats Before 2021 Breach
- Researchers say attacks a prequel to this year’s cyber-assault
- Foreign ministries, energy companies said to be compromised
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
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Late last year, researchers at the Los Angeles-based cybersecurity company Resecurity stumbled across a massive trove of stolen data while investigating the hack of an Italian retailer.
Squirreled away on a cloud storage platform were five gigabytes of data that had been stolen during the previous three and half years from foreign ministries and energy companies by hacking their on-premises Microsoft Exchange servers. In all, Resecurity researchers found documents and emails from six foreign ministries and eight energy companies in the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe.