{
	"id": "c4b5ce9d-2c1d-4b48-bd0f-bc76e4543152",
	"created_at": "2026-04-06T00:10:56.990164Z",
	"updated_at": "2026-04-10T03:37:49.722806Z",
	"deleted_at": null,
	"sha1_hash": "f65ab0258e224c24625b7db727f4446eb61572fb",
	"title": "Microsoft Obtains Court Order to Take Down Domains Used to Target Ukraine",
	"llm_title": "",
	"authors": "",
	"file_creation_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
	"file_modification_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
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	"plain_text": "Microsoft Obtains Court Order to Take Down Domains Used to\r\nTarget Ukraine\r\nBy The Hacker News\r\nPublished: 2022-04-08 · Archived: 2026-04-05 22:55:34 UTC\r\nMicrosoft on Thursday disclosed that it obtained a court order to take control of seven domains used by APT28, a\r\nstate-sponsored group operated by Russia's military intelligence service, with the goal of neutralizing its attacks\r\non Ukraine.\r\n\"We have since re-directed these domains to a sinkhole controlled by Microsoft, enabling us to mitigate\r\nStrontium's current use of these domains and enable victim notifications,\" Tom Burt, Microsoft's corporate vice\r\npresident of customer security and trust, said.\r\nAPT28, also known by the names Sofacy, Sednit, Pawn Storm, Fancy Bear, Iron Twilight, and Strontium, is\r\na cyber espionage group and an advanced persistent threat that's known to be active since 2009, striking media,\r\ngovernments, military, and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that often have a security focus.\r\nThe tech giant noted that the sinkholed infrastructure was used by the threat actor to target Ukrainian institutions\r\nas well as governments and think tanks in the U.S. and the European Union so as to maintain long term persistent\r\nhttps://thehackernews.com/2022/04/microsoft-obtains-court-order-to-take.html\r\nPage 1 of 3\n\naccess and exfiltrate sensitive information.\r\nThe seizure is part of a long-term investment to systematically dismantle infrastructure used by the threat actor,\r\nMicrosoft said, adding it has used the expedited legal framework put in place 15 times to take down more than\r\n100 Strontium-controlled domains.\r\nMeta takes action against Ghostwriter and Phosphorus\r\nThe disclosure from Microsoft comes as Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, revealed that it took\r\naction against covert adversarial networks originating from Azerbaijan and Iran on its platform, by taking down\r\nthe accounts and blocking their domains from being shared.\r\nThe Azerbaijanian operation is believed to have singled out democracy activists, opposition groups, and\r\njournalists from the country and government critics abroad for carrying out credential phishing and espionage\r\nactivities.\r\nAnother involved UNC788 (aka Charming Kitten, TA453, or Phosphorus), a government-linked hacking crew that\r\nhas a history of conducting surveillance operations in support of Iranian strategic priorities.\r\n\"This group used a combination of low-sophistication fake accounts and more elaborate fictitious personas, which\r\nthey likely used to build trust with potential targets and trick them into clicking on phishing links or downloading\r\nmalicious applications,\" Meta outlined in its first quarterly Adversarial Threat Report.\r\nThe malicious Android applications, dubbed HilalRAT, impersonated seemingly harmless Quran apps to extract\r\nsensitive information, such as contacts list, text messages, files, location information, as well as activate camera\r\nand microphone.\r\nMeta also said it blocked the malicious activities associated with an unreported Iranian hacking group that\r\nleveraged tactics similar to that of Tortoiseshell to target or spoof companies in the energy, IT, maritime logistics,\r\nsemiconductor, and telecom industries.\r\nThis campaign featured an elaborate set of bogus profiles on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, with the\r\nactors posing as recruiters of real and front companies to trick users into clicking on phishing links to deliver\r\ninformation stealing malware that were disguised as VPN, calculator, audiobook, and messaging apps.\r\n\"They developed malware on the VMWare ThinApp virtualization platform, which allowed them to run it on\r\nmany different systems and hold malicious payload back until the last minute, making malware detection more\r\nchallenging,\" Meta explained.\r\nLastly, also disrupted by Meta were takeover attempts made by the Belarus-aligned Ghostwriter group to break\r\ninto the Facebook accounts of dozens of Ukrainian military personnel.\r\nhttps://thehackernews.com/2022/04/microsoft-obtains-court-order-to-take.html\r\nPage 2 of 3\n\nThe attacks, which were successful in a \"handful of cases,\" abused the access to victims' social media accounts\r\nand posted disinformation \"calling on the Army to surrender as if these posts were coming from the legitimate\r\naccount owners.\"\r\nFound this article interesting? Follow us on Google News, Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content\r\nwe post.\r\nSource: https://thehackernews.com/2022/04/microsoft-obtains-court-order-to-take.html\r\nhttps://thehackernews.com/2022/04/microsoft-obtains-court-order-to-take.html\r\nPage 3 of 3",
	"extraction_quality": 1,
	"language": "EN",
	"sources": [
		"Malpedia"
	],
	"references": [
		"https://thehackernews.com/2022/04/microsoft-obtains-court-order-to-take.html"
	],
	"report_names": [
		"microsoft-obtains-court-order-to-take.html"
	],
	"threat_actors": [
		{
			"id": "82b92285-4588-48c9-8578-bb39f903cf62",
			"created_at": "2022-10-25T15:50:23.850506Z",
			"updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:05.418577Z",
			"deleted_at": null,
			"main_name": "Charming Kitten",
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			"created_at": "2023-01-06T13:46:38.748929Z",
			"updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:03.087356Z",
			"deleted_at": null,
			"main_name": "APT35",
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				"Newscaster Team",
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				"G0059",
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				"TunnelVision"
			],
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			"created_at": "2023-03-04T02:01:54.091301Z",
			"updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:03.356317Z",
			"deleted_at": null,
			"main_name": "APT42",
			"aliases": [
				"UNC788",
				"CALANQUE"
			],
			"source_name": "MISPGALAXY:APT42",
			"tools": [],
			"source_id": "MISPGALAXY",
			"reports": null
		},
		{
			"id": "ae26d287-8ba7-447e-9391-cf13c02d7481",
			"created_at": "2023-03-04T02:01:54.0962Z",
			"updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:03.357189Z",
			"deleted_at": null,
			"main_name": "TA453",
			"aliases": [],
			"source_name": "MISPGALAXY:TA453",
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			"source_id": "MISPGALAXY",
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			"created_at": "2024-04-24T02:00:49.644637Z",
			"updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:05.423196Z",
			"deleted_at": null,
			"main_name": "UNC788",
			"aliases": [
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			"source_name": "MITRE:UNC788",
			"tools": [
				"HilalRAT"
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			"source_id": "MITRE",
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			"created_at": "2023-01-06T13:46:38.364105Z",
			"updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:02.944092Z",
			"deleted_at": null,
			"main_name": "Charming Kitten",
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