microsoft took a serious blow to Russia’s cybercriminals through confiscation seven domains belonging to Strontiumalso known as Fancy Bear or APT28a group of hackers closely related to military intelligence agency from the country.

As announced on their official blog, Russian spies used these sites to target media of Ukraineas well as foreign policy think tanks and government institutions located in the US and European Union.

To accomplish the mission, Microsoft obtained a court order allowing it to control each domain on April 6. Later they were redirected to an alternate serverknown as the sinkhole, used by cybersecurity experts to capture and check malicious connections.

The company said it seized more than 100 domains controlled by Fancy Bear prior to this latest decommissioning.

“We believe that Strontium is trying to establish long -term access to the systems of its targets, provide tactical support for physical aggression and leakage of sensitive information”, Tom Burt, corporate vice president of security and customer trust at Microsoft, said in the publication. “We have notified the Ukrainian government about the activity we have seen and the steps we have taken.”

This particular hacking group has a long history of trying to interfere in both Ukraine and the US. Fancy Bear is linked to cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee in 2016 and targeted the 2020 US elections.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only exacerbated cyberattacks Fancy Bear and other bad actors.

Last month, Google said that cyber attackers and the group Belarusian Ghostwriter hacking conducted a phishing attack against Ukrainian officials and members of the Polish military.

The hackers were also accused of being backed by the Russian state hack of European satellite service at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as the attack on U.S. defense contractors in February.

What remains to define is whether Fancy Bear behind any of the attacks.

Google also punished Russia

Another of big technology, the technology giant Google, punished Russia by blocked from the official channel of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliamenton the online video platform YouTube, a month after the suspension of official Russian media channels.

A spokesman for Google, which owns YouTube, said the U.S. company is “committed to complying with all trade compliance laws and sanctions.”

“If we find that an account violates our terms of use, we take appropriate steps,” the spokesperson, quoted by the digital newspaper Politico, said, adding that the company will continue to “monitor situation ”to see if it needs any change in its decision.

The spokesman did not provide details on how the “Duma TV” channel, which broadcasts official content from the Russian Parliament, violated its terms of use.

However, when YouTube blocked in mid-March official Russian media channels that received government funds, such as Russia Today (RT), Russia 24 of Sputnikthe reason he gave was that these accounts violated his policies by minimizing the war in Ukraine.

The video platform then explained that its portal’s internal rules prohibit content that “denies, minimizes, or values ​​well-documented violent events.”

The announcement about the Duma channel came two days after Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor banned tech giant Google and its products from being distributed in the country.

Russia’s regulatory agency has accused YouTube of “multiple violations” of Russian law in its content on the war in Ukraine and of “discrimination” with respect to the content of Russian media, government, public and sports organizations and the country’s personality . .