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The U.S. Justice Department and Microsoft disrupted infrastructure used by Star Blizzard, a Russia-linked threat group tied to the FSB, by seizing more than 100 internet domains used in spear-phishing and credential-theft operations. Federal investigators obtained a warrant for 41 domains, while Microsoft secured a civil court order covering 66 more, targeting infrastructure allegedly operated by the group also known as Callisto Group, COLDRIVER, and SEABORGIUM. Authorities said the domains were used to impersonate trusted contacts and lure victims into surrendering credentials or granting access to email accounts and computers.
U.S. officials said the campaign targeted government personnel, former intelligence officials, Department of Defense and State employees, defense contractors, Department of Energy staff, journalists, think tanks, NGOs, and other civil society organizations. The Justice Department said the operation sought sensitive information related to U.S. defense, foreign affairs, and nuclear energy research, while Microsoft reported that Star Blizzard had targeted at least 82 customers and more than 30 civil society organizations since 2023, at a pace of roughly one attack per week. The disruption was presented as part of a broader effort to blunt Russian intelligence collection and reduce the risk of interference affecting democratic institutions and public-interest groups.
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In a coordinated civil action, Microsoft obtained a court order to seize 66 domains allegedly used by Star Blizzard as part of the same Russian spear-phishing infrastructure. The company said the disruption was especially important amid concerns about foreign interference in democratic processes.
The U.S. Justice Department announced the unsealing of a warrant authorizing the seizure of 41 internet domains allegedly used by the Callisto Group, an FSB-linked unit also tracked by Microsoft as Star Blizzard. Authorities said the domains supported spear-phishing and credential theft targeting U.S. victims, including government personnel and defense-related organizations.
According to Microsoft, Star Blizzard targeted more than 30 civil society organizations between January 2023 and August 2024 in efforts to steal sensitive information and interfere with their activities. Victims included journalists, think tanks, and NGOs.
Microsoft said the Russia-linked group Star Blizzard began targeting its customers in January 2023, ultimately hitting at least 82 customers at roughly one attack per week. Targets included government personnel, former intelligence officials, defense contractors, journalists, think tanks, NGOs, and civil society organizations.
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Microsoft and U.S. authorities said **Nobelium**, the Russia-linked espionage group associated with the SolarWinds intrusion, used a compromised USAID account at a mass email marketing provider to send phishing emails masquerading as **USAID** alerts. The campaign began around May 25 and targeted thousands of accounts across more than 100 organizations, with reporting indicating the activity reached civil society, diplomatic, election-related, and human-rights groups in at least 24 countries. Identified targets included anti-corruption activists in Ukraine, an employee of the **OSCE**, **EU DisinfoLab**, and former U.S. ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow. According to the Justice Department, victims who clicked the malicious link were directed to malware hosted on a subdomain of `theyardservice[.]com`, after which the attackers deployed **Cobalt Strike** for persistence and potential follow-on operations. The DOJ obtained court-authorized seizures of `theyardservice[.]com` and `worldhomeoutlet[.]com`, describing them as infrastructure used for malware delivery and command-and-control, while Microsoft and DHS said they had not yet observed large-scale compromise. U.S. officials said the disruption was intended to cut off the phishing operation and help identify victims, while cautioning that some organizations may already have been backdoored.
Aug 14, 2026
The UK government publicly attributed a long-running cyber campaign against democratic institutions and politicians’ personal email accounts to officers of **Centre 18** of Russia’s **FSB**, identifying the activity under names including **COLDRIVER**, **Star Blizzard**, **SEABORGIUM**, **Callisto**, and **BlueCharlie**. Officials said the operation had run since at least 2015, included the compromise of then trade minister Liam Fox’s email in 2019, and involved the selective leaking of stolen material later cited during a UK election campaign. In response, London summoned the Russian ambassador and sanctioned **Ruslan Peretyatko** and **Andrew Korinets** following a National Crime Agency investigation. Security researchers said the group has continued refining its credential-harvesting tradecraft to evade detection, replacing exposed infrastructure with dozens of new domains and using legitimate cloud services such as **Google Docs** and **Microsoft OneDrive** as phishing lures. Prior reporting linked the actor to **Evilginx**-based phishing kits designed to steal credentials and MFA tokens, with targets spanning governments, defense organizations, think tanks, NGOs, journalists, and academic institutions across Europe and North America. Microsoft warned that the actor’s ongoing attacks show increased sophistication and evasion, underscoring that the campaign remains active despite public exposure and sanctions.
Aug 15, 2026
Citizen Lab and Access Now documented a sophisticated spear-phishing campaign targeting Russian opposition figures, Belarusian and Russian civil society groups, independent media, international NGOs active in Eastern Europe, policy experts, funders, journalists, and at least one former U.S. ambassador. Researchers attributed one cluster to **COLDRIVER**—also tracked as **Star Blizzard**, **Callisto**, **TA446**, **Blue Charlie**, and **UNC4057**—a Russia-linked threat actor that multiple governments have associated with the FSB’s Centre 18, while identifying a separate but related phishing cluster as **COLDWASTREL**. The operations used highly personalized impersonation emails sent from compromised or lookalike accounts, along with fake encrypted or protected PDF lures that redirected victims through fingerprinting infrastructure to credential-harvesting pages spoofing services such as Gmail and ProtonMail. Investigators found overlaps with known COLDRIVER tradecraft, including Hostinger-registered domains, Let’s Encrypt or ZeroSSL certificates, LibreOffice 7.0 PDF metadata, randomized author names, and occasional HubSpot links, while COLDWASTREL showed distinct metadata, infrastructure, and domain patterns. The groups sought passwords, two-factor authentication codes, and session cookies, raising the risk of exposing sensitive identities, communications, relationships, and locations of organizations already facing Russian government repression.
Jul 12, 2026