Russia's anti-monopoly regulator has said that unknown hackers broke into its systems this week as cybersecurity experts flagged simultaneous attacks against dozens of banks.
The Russian economy has suffered losses of $9.1 billion to cyberattacks in 2017, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev estimated recently.
The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) said its employees received a virus attached to a phishing email sent from an address that called itself “Federal Antimonopoly Service” on Wednesday.
“The virus spread to both the central office and the territorial bodies,” it said in an online statement published Thursday.
FAS said it believes the intruders tried to access its internal emails.
“This was a full-fledged hacking attack,” FAS spokeswoman Irina Kashunina was quoted as saying by the RBC news website.
It is unclear who may have committed the cyber intrusion or what the extent of the damage was, she said.
Meanwhile, at least 52 Russian and five foreign banks received malicious emails from two “of the most dangerous” hacking groups, the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Group-IB said Thursday.
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