Microsoft says Iranian hackers have posed as conference organizers in Germany and Saudi Arabia in an attempt to break into the email accounts of “high-profile” people with spoofed invitations.

The tech company said Wednesday it detected attempts by the hacking group it calls Phosphorus to trick former government officials, policy experts and academics.

The targets included more than 100 prominent people invited by the hackers to the Munich Security Conference, which is attended by world leaders each February, and the upcoming Think 20 Summit, which begins later this week in Saudi Arabia but is online-only this year.

“We believe Phosphorus is engaging in these attacks for intelligence collection purposes,” said Tom Burt, Microsoft’s security chief, in a prepared statement. “The attacks were successful in compromising several victims, including former ambassadors and other senior policy experts who help shape global agendas and foreign policies in their respective countries.”

Microsoft didn’t identify the nationalities of the people targeted. It said the activity is unrelated to the upcoming U.S. elections.

Wednesday’s announcement refers to the hacking group as an “Iranian actor” but doesn’t explicitly tie it to the Iranian government. Microsoft calls it Phosphorus, while others call it APT35 or Charming Kitten.

The Redmond, Washington tech company has been tracking the group since 2013 and has previously accused it of trying to snoop on activists, journalists, political dissidents, defense industry workers and others in the Middle East.

Cybersecurity researchers have said the group typically tries to infiltrate a target’s personal online accounts and computer networks by luring them into clicking on a link to a compromised website or opening a malicious attachment.

Source: AP

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Honda plants in Brazil and India have halted operations as the Japanese carmaker battles to recover from a cyberattack that affected several factories worldwide.

The cyberattack at the beginning of the week targeted Honda's internal servers and spread a virus through the company's systems, a spokeswoman told AFP on Wednesday.

Motorcycle plants in India and Brazil were still out of action following the attack, while a four-wheel vehicle plant in Turkey resumed operations on Wednesday, the spokeswoman said.

The firm was "still investigating details", she said.

In total, the cyberattack affected 11 Honda plants -- including five in the US, according to local media reports.

All US plants have resumed operations, the spokeswoman said, declining to elaborate further.

She said the suspension would have only a limited impact on Honda's business globally.

Global automakers including Honda have already been hit hard by a slump in sales because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last month, Honda reported a 25.3-percent fall in net profit from the previous year as sales dropped six percent to 14.9 trillion yen ($138 billion) in the fiscal year ending in March.

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Tech giant Microsoft has launched the Family Safety app, designed to help protect a family's digital and physical safety.
The new screen time and parental controls app help you customize your kids' web access and balance healthy screen times. The application is available on iOS and Android.

"Introducing the Family Safety app. Customize your kids' web access, balance healthy screen times, and stay connected to what matters most--all in one place. Available on iOS and Android," Microsoft tweeted.

"Over the past few months, I have been using the preview with my family, and it has been a game-changer! As a kid, my two favourite things to do after school were to ride my bike and play soccer with my neighbourhood friends. Nowadays, my kids are always on their devices, whether playing video games with their friends, on social media or learning remotely. Today, I am excited to share with you how any family worried about their kids’ online safety can benefit from the Microsoft Family Safety app and how it has helped us to create healthier habits for my kids, while also giving my wife and me peace of mind," Liat Ben-Zur, Corporate Vice President, Modern Life, Search, and Devices, Microsoft, said in a statement.

With the help of the Family Safety app, one can use web and search filters to block adult content and set browsing to kid-friendly websites with either allowed or blocked websites list.

This feature helps in maintaining healthy digital habits and works in a tight concert with the Microsoft Edge browser on Windows, Xbox, and Android.

Source:(ANI)

 

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The U.S. Defense Department said on Friday it has completed a comprehensive re-evaluation of its $10 billion JEDI cloud computing contract proposals and determined that Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O) submission still represents the best value for the government.

Despite the reaffirmed award, the result of a comprehensive re-evaluation by the U.S. Department of Defense, the contract remains on hold after a judge in February granted Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) request to temporarily halt the deal from moving forward.

Amazon, which has argued the contract process reflected undue influence from President Donald Trump, said on Friday it would “not back down in the face of targeted political cronyism or illusory corrective actions, and we will continue pursuing a fair, objective, and impartial review.”

The company called the Pentagon’s “re-evaluation nothing more than an attempt to validate a flawed, biased, and politically corrupted decision” and said in the last review it “offered a lower cost by several tens of millions of dollars”

Amazon, which had been seen as a front-runner to win the contract, filed a lawsuit in November weeks after the contract was awarded to Microsoft. Trump has publicly derided Amazon head Jeff Bezos and repeatedly criticized the company.

Amazon closed down 2.2%.

Microsoft said it appreciated “that after careful review, the DoD confirmed that we offered the right technology and the best value. We’re ready to get to work.”

The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud (JEDI) contract could reach as much as $10 billion and is part of a broader digital modernization of the Pentagon aimed at making it more technologically agile.

The Amazon lawsuit said the 2019 Pentagon decision was full of “egregious errors”, which it suggested were a result of “improper pressure from Trump, who launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks” to steer the contract away from Amazon to harm Bezos.

As well as deriding the Amazon head, Trump has accused the Washington Post newspaper, owned by Bezos, of unfair coverage.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has rejected that there was bias and said the Pentagon made its choice fairly.

Source: Reuters

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