Report says Russian hackers haven’t eased spying efforts

By ERIC TUCKER and FRANK BAJAK
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The elite Russian state hackers behind last year’s massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign hardly eased up this year, managing plenty of infiltrations of U.S. and allied government agencies and foreign policy think tanks with consummate craft and stealth. So says the leading cybersecurity firm Mandiant a year after it discovered the SolarWinds campaign. Separately, Microsoft says it had just disrupted the cyber-spying of a state-backed Chinese hacking group by taking down websites it used to gather intelligence from foreign ministries, think tanks and rights organizations in the U.S. and 28 other countries. Most of the targets were in Latin America and Europe.