14,000 Gmail users notified of APT28 attacks

Google sent out notifications to 14,000 Gmail users, warning them that they became victims of targeted phishing attacks by government hackers from the APT28 group.

Alerts like this are not new, as Google has been warning users of interest from government hackers since 2012. The first to report on the new mailing list was The Record, which quotes Google TAG head Shane Huntley:

On his Twitter account, the expert says that receiving such a letter does not mean that the user’s account has already been hacked, it is just a warning.

Let me remind you that APT28 (aka Fancy Bear, Sednit, Sofacy, Strontium and PwnStorm) is considered a Russian-speaking hack group, and information security specialists associate it with the GRU. APT28 often relies on spear phishing in its attacks, because by hacking a mailbox, attackers can gain access not only to confidential documents and messages, but also to reach other people or internal networks of the organization.

Let me remind you that we also talked about US authorities imposed sanctions on a Russian institution associated with Triton malware, and we also talked about the fact that The FBI found no evidence of Russia’s fight against extortionists.