On Thursday, Microsoft recognized that hackers who organized a huge hack of government and private computer networks gained access to its internal “source code,” a vital element for its software.
But the technology behemoth said the attack, which top US officials suggested have been committed by Russian-led hackers, were unable to compromise or adjust any of its software.
The news displays an even wider attack vector for the breach of security software made by the US company SolarWinds. It is also thought to have given the hackers access to the systems run by the US Treasury, Energy and Homeland Security Departments and an extensive range of other victims in government and the private sector.
“We detected unusual activity with a small number of internal accounts and upon review, we discovered one account had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories,” Microsoft said on its security blog.
“The account did not have permissions to modify any code or engineering systems and our investigation further confirmed no changes were made. These accounts were investigated and remediated”
Microsoft maintained that the latest revelation “has not put at risk the security of our services or any customer data, but we want to be transparent and share what we’re learning as we combat what we believe is a very sophisticated nation-state actor.”