Suspected China Hack of Microsoft Shows Signs of Prior Reconnaissance
Investigators suspect personal data taken in earlier huge hacks or scraped off social-media sites aided breach of Microsoft Exchange Server
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/suspected-china-hack-of-microsoft-shows-signs-of-prior-reconnaissance-11617800400
Chinese hacking groups suspected of carrying out the major cyberattack on Microsoft’s Exchange Server are thought to have succeeded by mining huge amounts of personal data prior to the actual attack. Investigators suspect that prior reconnaissance, in the form of previous hacks and mining information from social media, assisted hackers in their attack on Microsoft’s systems, which was disclosed March 2. “Such a method, if confirmed, could realize long-held fears about the national security consequences of Beijing’s prior massive data thefts. And it would suggest the hackers had a higher degree of planning and sophistication than previously understood,” report Dustin Volz and Robert McMillan report for the Wall Street Journal.