Microsoft reveals new Russian hack attempts

The group of Russian hackers thought to be responsible for stealing a trove of emails from the Democratic National Committee has been targeting European think tanks, Microsoft said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Microsoft announced that it had uncovered spearfishing attempts by the group, known as APT 28 or Fancy Bear, that targeted employees at the German Council on Foreign Relations, The Aspen Institutes in Europe and The German Marshall Fund.

It’s the second time in the past six months that Microsoft has revealed its efforts to crack down on APT 28, which is believed to have ties to Russian intelligence.

“The attacks we’ve seen recently, coupled with others we discussed last year, suggest an ongoing effort to target democratic organizations,” Tom Burt, the company’s vice president for customer security and trust, wrote in the blog post. “They validate the warnings from European leaders about the threat level we should expect to see in Europe this year.”

According to Microsoft, the hacker group sent its targets fraudulent emails that included malicious links that aimed to inject malware into the organizations’ software systems.