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The world's largest software company announced the new policy in a blog post late Wednesday. "We will now notify you if we believe your account has been targeted or compromised by an individual or group working on behalf of a nation state," the post said. Microsoft is taking the additional security step because state-sponsored attacks are often "more sophisticated or more sustained than attacks from cybercriminals and others," it said. "If you receive one of these notifications it doesn’t necessarily mean that your account has been compromised, but it does mean we have evidence your account has been targeted, and it’s very important you take additional measures to keep your account secure," the post added.
The statement did not mention any specific countries believed to have been targeting Microsoft users. But the Reuters news agency said the policy change came nine days after it asked the company why it had declined to inform victims of a 2011 hacking campaign targeting exiled members of China's Tibetan and Uighur communities. The news agency spoke with two former Microsoft employees who said company experts "had concluded several years ago that Chinese authorities had been behind the campaign but the company did not pass on that information."
Earlier this year, Facebook and Twitter announced they would also warn users when they believe state-sponsored hackers may be trying to access user accounts. In its statement, Microsoft on Wednesday stressed that a notification does "not mean that Microsoft’s own systems have in any way been compromised." It also said it will not be able to detail why it believes a specific attack was state-sponsored. "The evidence we collect in any active investigation may be sensitive, so we do not plan on providing detailed or specific information about the attackers or their methods," the statement said.
Microsoft to Alert Users of State-sponsored Hacking Attempts
A power company in western Ukraine, Prykarpattyaoblenergo, said on December 23 that a swath of the area it serves had been left without energy, including the regional capital Ivano-Frankivsk, due to "interference" in the work of the system. The Ukrainian Security Service SBU later blamed Russia, which has not so far commented on the allegation. On Thursday, the energy ministry said it had set up a special commission to investigate what happened.
The SBU accuses Russian security agencies of launching the attack but, despite the blackout, said it had managed to thwart the malware. "We found that the package of information [malware] came from Russia," an SBU spokeswoman told Reuters on Thursday. "It was an attempt to interfere in the system. But it was discovered and prevented."
The malware had failed to kick in as intended and was neutralized, she said, saying the region would have faced a much longer blackout if it had worked. Relations between Russia and Ukraine have sharply deteriorated since Moscow annexed Crimea last year and supported pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. Crimea has lost at least one quarter of its power after Ukraine switched off supplies to the contested peninsula on Wednesday, a situation that Ukrainian police blamed on unidentified saboteurs blowing up an electricity pylon.
Ukraine to Investigate Suspected Cyberattack on Energy Grid
