Microsoft Says Disrupted Use Of Cyberweapons Made And Sold By Israeli Group

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th July, 2021) microsoft has disrupted the use of cyberweapons that they claim to have been produced by an Israeli group and sold to other cybercriminal actors, the company said on Thursday.

"We take this [cyber] threat seriously and have disrupted the use of certain cyberweapons manufactured and sold by a group we call Sourgum. The weapons disabled were being used in precision attacks targeting more than 100 victims around the world including politicians, human rights activists, journalists, academics, embassy workers and political dissidents... We believe Sourgum is an Israel-based private sector offensive actor or PSOA," Microsoft said in an official blog post.

Microsoft was made aware of the group's malware by a tip from Citizen Lab, a team that studies information and internet-related topics in the context of human rights. They identified the group as a company called Candiru. Following the tip, Microsoft's Threat Intelligence and Security Response centers began studying the malware and developing ways to combat it.

Software updates that will prevent Sourgum's malware from working on the computers of Windows users were issued this week. Microsoft also shared the protections against the malware, dubbed DevilsTongue, with others in the security community in order to protect their customers as well.