Russia is continuing to launch cyberattacks on U.S.-based companies and government agencies after further sanctions were laid on top government officials in Moscow. The attacks were reported first by Microsoft, who also specified that cloud data was one of the major targets of the hack attempts. The attack was primarily based not on targeted attacks against particular individuals of the companies attacked, but on using stolen credential databases from other companies and brute force trying username and password combinations against login sites. Government officials commented on the hacks by noting that security partially rests on the companies who store sensitive data in the cloud, as those companies must make some effort to prevent unauthorized access in order to ensure that the data is rendered inaccessible to outsiders.
