November 18, 2015
There’s a new hacking team out there that’s proving surprisingly good at getting into government systems using social engineering tactics coupled with zero-day attacks in assaults that can last as long as a year.
Dubbed Strontium by researchers at the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, the hackers have been active since 2007, but this year have been particularly determined going after servers in government bodies, diplomatic institutions, and military forces and installations in NATO member states and certain Eastern European governments.
The group spends a lot of time researching their targets on social media and email lists, trying to find people with access to a system they want to penetrate. Microsoft researchers say several thousand people have been subject to attack.