Microsoft might just be the latest victim of a hacking group that has penetrated the firewalls of some of the world’s biggest tech companies over the last few months.
The software giant is currently investigating the claims that LAPSUS$, a hacking group that had previously stolen data from Nvidia, Samsung, and other big tech companies, has gained access to its internal systems, according to a Motherboard report shared on Monday. The claims follow a screenshot the group posted on its Telegram channel over the weekend.
What Did the Hacking Group Leak?
The screenshot revealed information taken from an internal Azure DevOps account, which is Microsoft’s cloud computing division. The contents of the screenshot also revealed some particular projects including, “Bing_U”, potentially indicating the user experience to Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, “Bing-Source” referring to access to source code of the search engine, along with its smart assistant, “Cortona”. Other than this, the screenshot also disclosed sections of “mscomdev,” ‘microsoft,” and “msbox”. This leads to the implication that the person taking the screenshot might possibly have access to the company’s internal codes as well.
Although the screenshot was deleted only a while after it was posted on LAPSUS$’s Telegram channel, the group placed a warning that read “deleted, for now, will post later”.
Lapsus$ has not demanded anything from the software giant, as of yet. However, it had previously made some absurd demands in exchange from other companies. In the case of Nvidia, the group had threatened to release stolen internal data unless GPU drivers were made open source and Ethereum cryptocurrency mining limiters were removed from the 30-series graphics cards. In the past, the group also had a part in breaching the Ministry of Health of Brazil, among other organizations.
