Microsoft says Russia carried out 58% of detected state-backed hacks in the year ending June 30, with a 32% success rate; China accounted for 8%
and how organizations can better protect themselves: https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ...
Associated PressFrank Bajak
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft’s assessment follows its identification of more than 40 customers targeted in the SolarWinds intrusion, which it described as an ongoing attack requiring a global cybersecurity response. It establishes a baseline for the relative prominence and effectiveness of Russia- and China-linked activity in Microsoft’s detections.
Organizations using Microsoft’s guidance have a clearer basis to prioritize defenses against the Russia-linked activity that made up the largest share of its detected state-backed attacks, while retaining coverage for China-linked threats.
Microsoft’s reported 32% success rate puts attention on reducing compromise outcomes, not merely detecting attempted intrusions.
Second-order effects
Security teams and vendors face pressure to turn broad state-actor intelligence into controls against targeted campaigns, particularly as Microsoft later documented Russia-linked social engineering against a small group of global organizations.
Russia’s reported share gives NATO-aligned and other internationally exposed organizations added reason to treat geopolitical exposure as an input to cyber-defense prioritization, consistent with Microsoft’s later reporting on attacks beyond Ukraine.
Third-order effects
If successive Microsoft assessments continue to show concentrated state-backed activity, threat intelligence will increasingly be organized around persistent actor campaigns and their target sets rather than isolated incidents.
The pattern points toward cyber resilience becoming a cross-border coordination issue: Microsoft’s SolarWinds response had already framed a major intrusion as requiring a global response, and later reporting broadened the geographic scope of Russian activity.
The trend: State-backed cyber risk is becoming a sustained, actor-led security problem in which geopolitical targeting and social-engineering campaigns shape enterprise defense priorities.
“<20% of our customers are using strong authentication features like multifactor authentication... We offer this for free, and organizations can turn it on by default for their users.” I'm confused: Are we talking about enterprises, or consumers? https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ...
@vasujakkal
Vasu Jakkal on x
I keep thinking about this from the 2021 Microsoft Digital Defense Report: did you know authenticators like MFA protect against 99.9% of identity attacks, but only 20% of users & 30% of global admins use it? With 80% of orgs going Hybrid, MFA is essential and within reach. https:…
@cyberamyhb
Amy Hogan-Burney on x
The 2021 Microsoft Digital Defense Report is a compilation of insights from our global security teams that can be used to better understand how cybercriminal networks operate and how we can best protect our customers from online attacks:https://www.microsoft.com/ ...
@msftsecintel
@msftsecintel on x
Cybercrime attacks on critical infrastructure steal headlines, but the top 5 industries targeted in the past year are consumer retail, financial services, manufacturing, government, and health care. More insights from the Microsoft Digital Defense Report: https://blogs.microsoft.…
@juliesbrill
Julie Brill on x
Over 24 trillion security signals were analyzed every day to provide our view of the increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. This report is a testament to the power of data when used responsibly. https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ...
@ericgeller
Eric Geller on x
New Microsoft threat report out today: https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ... 58% of the cyberattacks that the company saw from 7/2020-6/2021 were from Russia. Government agencies went from 3% of Russian state hacking targets the previous year to 53% this past year.
@ersincmt
@ersincmt on x
New Microsoft Digital Defense Report: During the past year, 58% of all cyberattacks observed by Microsoft from nation-states have come from Russia. The top three countries targeted by Russian nation-state actors were the USA, Ukraine and the UK. https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ... #…
@cristingoodwin
Cristin Goodwin on x
Here is our blog post highlighting the report. Russia moved into the top slot this year, knocking North Korea down to 2nd. https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ...
@jseldin
Jeff Seldin on x
More from @Microsoft's 2021 Digital Defense Report here: https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ...
@kembawalden
Kemba Walden on x
The 2021 Microsoft Digital Defense Report shows how this model has evolved. https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ...
@etuckerap
Eric Tucker on x
BOSTON (AP) Russia accounted for most state-sponsored hacking detected by Microsoft over the past year, with a 58% share, mostly targeting government agencies and think tanks in the US, followed by Ukraine, Britain and European NATO members @fbajak https://apnews.com/...
@bradsmi
Brad Smith on x
More countries and criminals are launching cyberattacks than ever. The new Microsoft Digital Defense Report shares insights on intelligence from trillions of signals around the world—and how organizations can better protect themselves: https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ...