Microsoft has started the new year on a very weird note. The company says it discovered its systems were infiltrated. This news comes as the company continues to investigate the massive SolarWinds attack. It said the infiltration was just beyond the presence of malicious SolarWinds code.

In an update from its Security Response Center, Microsoft says that hackers were able to "view source code in a number of source code repositories". This is indeed big news and it'll take at least a few weeks to unravel the attack's implications.

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Microsoft noted that the attackers didn't have any permission to modify any code or systems. It also noted that it found no evidence of access to production services or customer data. There are no indications that their accounts were used to attack others either.

This isn't a usual attack but Microsoft says it regularly assumes adversaries are able to view its source code and does not rely on the secrecy of source code to keep its products secure. At this point, it's hard to tell how much code was viewed by the attackers or what that particular code is used for, but we really appreciate Microsoft's assurance.

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The US government and the cybersecurity officials have implicated Russia as the architects of the overall SolarWinds attack. Microsoft, however, points to “a very sophisticated nation-state actor” as the culprit.

These cyber-attacks are getting more frequent now and it very alarming, to say the least. A lot of these big-name companies have our data and we hope necessary measures are in place to keep these attacks in check in the future.

Source: Microsoft

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