These are the same hackers behind the “SolarWinds” campaign, a massive espionage operation that infiltrated the networks of at least nine federal agencies and over 100 different US companies, spurring multiple congressional hearings. A new report from Bloomberg sheds light on the methods hackers are believed to be using to disguise their hacking activities. Essentially, residential proxies use pools of real IP addresses that can be legally purchased through certain Internet service providers for the purpose of anonymity.
Russian military hackers used special techniques to obfuscate their activities with tools that hide behind addresses connected to Americans’ private and mobile networks, targeting high-profile American targets. has an ongoing hacking campaign. For those who missed it, the SolarWinds hackers are back. According to a recent report by Microsoft researchers, certain cyber spies (believed to be members of Russia’s foreign intelligence service) have targeted a number of American technology companies in a new hacking campaign.
Highlights
“A residential proxy launders internet traffic through an unsuspecting home user, ensuring that the traffic is sent to the United States rather than somewhere in Eastern Europe,” said Doug Madley, an associate at cybersecurity firm Kentic. broadband customers. That’s interesting, but there’s definitely something strange about how walkable this is. Apparently not. Either way, technology, sophisticated or not, seems to help these hackers keep busy.
It’s a bit like a VPN in that it masks your real IP address and allows you to conduct online business anonymously. In fact, there seems to be a fairly large industry involved. A Google search for these services will bring up numerous companies. And it all seems perfectly legal. By using American IP addresses, Russian hackers were able to make their online activity less suspicious than by simply using Russian addresses.
It reportedly attacked 22,868 customers. “This recent activity seeks to gain long-term and systematic access for Russia to various points in the technology supply chain and to establish mechanisms to monitor targets of current or future interest to the Russian government. Tom Burt, vice president of privacy and security at Microsoft.