Macron Targeted by Russian Cyber Spies

Leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign reportedly was hit with cyberattacks from Pawn Storm, an alleged group of cyber spies with ties to Pawn Storm, the Russian military intelligence agency GRU, according to a Reuters report.

Trend Micro found that phishing attacks and attempts to plant malware on Macron's campaign site had similar digital characteristics to a cyberattack on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's group in the spring last year, as well as against the US Democratic National Committee's presidential campaign for Hillary Clinton, the report noted.

Macron, a vocal critic of Russia's foreign policy, is set to go against Marine Le Pen, a far-right candidate who is supportive of Russia's policies and has previously received loans from Russian banks, according to the report. The second round in the French election process is set for May 7.

Trend Micro researchers noted that four bogus email accounts were created using servers that claimed to have a onedrive-en-marche.fr location and other similar locations, which allowed the attackers to engage in "credentialed phishing," the report noted. The phishing attacks spanned from March through April.

Read more about the cyberattacks against Macron's campaign here.