Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center, MSTIC, has announced that the Ukrainian network had been attacked a few hours before the invasion. The report has been published by Brad Smith’s name; president and vice-chair of Microsoft. The attacks were carrying a new destructive malware named FoxBlade.
Defender was ready for FoxBlade in 3 hours
Microsoft has stated that they have immediately reported and advised the Ukrainian government. They had provided technical advice on steps to prevent the malware’s success as well. The company also updated the Defender software in three hours to block FoxBlade. The malware is a trojan that can use computers for distributed denial-of-service.
According to Microsoft, the ongoing attacks have been precisely targeted; but the company is concerned about recent activities targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructures such as the agriculture and energy sectors. Brad Smith, president, and vice-chair of Microsoft said;
« These recent and ongoing cyberattacks have been precisely targeted, and we have not seen the use of the indiscriminate malware technology that spread across Ukraine’s economy and beyond its borders in the 2017 NotPetya attack. But we remain especially concerned about recent cyberattacks on Ukrainian civilian digital targets, including the financial sector, agriculture sector, emergency response services, humanitarian aid efforts, and energy sector organizations and enterprises. These attacks on civilian targets raise serious concerns under the Geneva Convention, and we have shared information with the Ukrainian government about each of them. We have also advised the Ukrainian government about recent cyber efforts to steal a wide range of data, including health, insurance, and transportation-related personally identifiable information (PII), as well as other government data sets. »