The IMF disclosed a cyber incident where unknown attackers breached 11 IMF email accounts earlier this year. This international financial institution, supported by 190 member countries, is a significant United Nations financial agency based in Washington, D.C. The IMF detected the incident in February and is currently conducting an investigation to assess the attack’s impact. So far, there’s no evidence that the attackers accessed other systems beyond the compromised email accounts.
The IMF stated that the breach was detected on February 16, 2024, and subsequent investigation, with assistance from independent cybersecurity experts, determined the nature of the breach. Eleven email accounts were compromised, and they have been re-secured. Further details regarding the breach were not disclosed for security reasons. The IMF confirmed its use of the Microsoft 365 cloud-based email platform but stated that the incident doesn’t appear to be part of Microsoft targeting.
Previous incidents involving Russian hacking groups targeting Microsoft corporate and Office 365 email accounts were disclosed earlier in January. It remains uncertain if these incidents are linked to the IMF’s email breach. Notably, the IMF faced a significant breach in 2011, leading to the World Bank severing connections between their networks as a precautionary measure.
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