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Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) told more than a dozen state agencies and public universities in Texas that the state-sponsored Russian hacking group Midnight Blizzard gained access to emails exchanged between them, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter matter.
According to this person, Bloomberg warned, among other things, Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Workforce Commission, Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, Texas Land Office and Texas State Securities Board.
According to Bloomberg, Steve Pier – an official with the Texas Department of Information Resources – admitted on Friday about the release of state emails, but he said that so far they appear to be just routine administrative communications.
Microsoft (MSFT) did not respond to several requests for comment from Seeking Alpha. The agencies listed above also did not respond to multiple requests, with the exception of the Texas Workforce Commission, which could not be reached.
Midnight Blizzard accessed communications between Microsoft (MSFT) and Texas organizations as part of a broader state attack on the tech giant’s corporate systems revealed by the company in January.
Later in March, Microsoft ( MSFT ) released another update saying it had seen “evidence that Midnight Blizzard” had “used information originally stolen from our corporate email systems to gain or attempt to gain unauthorized access.”
“It is obvious that Midnight Blizzard is trying to exploit the various types of secrets it has found. Some of these secrets were shared with customers and Microsoft in emails, and since we discovered them in our stolen emails, we have contacted these customers and continue to contact them to lend a hand them take remediation measures,” she said then the company.
Bloomberg News earlier this week, on Thursday reported that Microsoft (MSFT) has started informing more customers that a Russian hacking group has seen their emails.
