Incidents

Hackers steal Microsoft Outlook login credentials to steal Bitcoin

Cyber forensics course specialists report that a group of hackers have infiltrated some email accounts from Outlook users to steal several virtual assets, including Bitcoin. The total stolen amount is still unknown, although it is speculated that it could be a considerable sum.

One of the victims, a Dutch engineer, claims
that a threat actor somehow got the login credentials of some of Microsoft‘s
employees. The engineer claims that the attackers used this information to scan
hundreds of emails, change passwords, and steal Bitcoin addresses from multiple
cryptocurrency exchange platforms.

According to cyber forensics course specialists,
hackers implemented a forwarding protocol with which the victims ‘ emails were
forwarded to an email address controlled by the attackers when the repetition
of a specific word was detected.

Unfortunately, the Dutch engineer’s case is not
the only one known so far. Through Reddit, a user claimed to have lost over
$20k USD in cryptocurrency
after their data related to a Microsoft service was compromised. “Hackers
didn’t even have to steal my credentials; they just gained access to the
content of my email by making a password reset request”, the user says.

The victims have accused the company of trying
to cover up this security incident in Outlook. Although the incident was
revealed a couple of weeks ago by cyber forensics course specialists, Microsoft
responded by stating that the incident had only compromised some metadata
related to the users ‘ email addresses.

However, by revealing that the content of the
victims’ emails had also been compromised, Microsoft changed its initial
statements and began the process of notifying the hacking victims.

Specialists from the International Institute of
Cyber Security (IICS) believe that Microsoft was wrong in deciding to downplay
a serious security incident. The experts believe that the company tried to hide
something obvious and this could generate a lot of problems in their image, in
addition to the potential loss of customers.

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