Malwarebytes: SolarWinds Hackers Attacked Us Too, Reading Company Emails

The hackers who managed to break into companies and governments through SolarWinds software at the end of last year also recently attacked Malwarebytes. The security company says it does not use SolarWinds software, but was attacked via other software.

In the blog post, Malwarebytes talks about attackers who abused applications that had access to Microsoft 365 or Azure environments. An investigation revealed that the attackers at Malwarebytes only had access to “a limited portion of internal company emails” but had no further access to the company’s internal systems.

Malwarebytes says they were tipped off by Microsoft on December 15 about the possible attack. Microsoft would have seen in the Malwarebytes 365 systems that the attack on the Malwarebytes systems was similar to the SolarWinds attack. The two companies then jointly investigated the attack, which would indicate that the attack is related to a vulnerability within Azure Active Directory. The antivirus company has researched its own source code, builds and shipping processes and reverse engineered their software. Based on this, Malwarebytes says their software is safe to use.

The attack on Malwarebytes appears to be similar to the attack on the US Department of Justice. In early January, the hackers entered the ministry’s Microsoft 365 environment, where they gained access to about three percent of all inboxes. This attack was discovered on December 24.