New Russian hacking attempts targeted conservative groups, Microsoft says

Steve Kiggins | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Microsoft uncovers new Russian hacking attempts on conservative groups New Russian hacking attempts targeting U.S. Political conservative groups was just uncovered by Microsoft.

Microsoft has uncovered new Russian hacking attempts targeting U.S. political groups ahead of the midterm elections, the technology giant said late Tuesday.

This attempt, tied to a hacking group affiliated with the Russian government, spoofed a pair of conservative think tanks, the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute.

There’s no sign the hackers were successful in generating any planned attacks through the fake websites, Microsoft said.

In a blog post, Brad Smith, president at Microsoft, said it's clear the tech sector must do more to protect the democratic process.

"We are concerned by the continued activity targeting these and other sites and directed toward elected officials, politicians, political groups and think tanks across the political spectrum in the United States," Smith wrote. "Taken together, this pattern mirrors the type of activity we saw prior to the 2016 election in the United States and the 2017 election in France."

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

Smith said the company is introducing technology called AccountGuard to offer "state-of-the-art cybersecurity protection" for free to candidates and campaign offices at the federal, state and local level, as well as think tanks and political organizations who might be targeted.

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“Cyberattacks have become one of the preferred tools of authoritarians around the world to harass and undermine independent organizations and democratic governments,” IRI President Daniel Twining said. “This latest attempt is consistent with the campaign of meddling that the Kremlin has waged against organizations that support democracy and human rights."

In a statement, the Hudson Institute said it was aware for "some time" that it was among the targets of the effort.

"We can only assume that this attack was intended to gather information about, and compromise or otherwise disrupt, Hudson’s longstanding democracy-promotion programs, and in particular, our initiatives to expose the activities of foreign kleptocratic regimes," the group said.

Microsoft obtained court approval last year allowing it to seize certain fake domains created by the hacking group, which it calls Strontium.

The fake websites, which were registered with major web-hosting companies, were at my-iri.org, hudsonorg-my-sharepoint.com, senate.group, adfs-senate.services, adfs-senate.email and office365-onedrive.com, according to Microsoft.

A similar Microsoft discovery led Missouri Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, who’s running for re-election, to reveal last month that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate her Senate computer network.

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Contributing: USA TODAY's Brett Molina in McLean, Va., and the Associated Press