Steve Marcus/Reuters
A hacking group thought to be associated with Russian military intelligence targeted the European offices of two American think tanks, according to reports. Fancy Bear—the same group believed to be behind some of the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee—went after the Aspen Institute and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, as well as the German Council on Foreign Relations, late last year, The Washington Post reports. “We’ve seen and continue to see efforts by nation-states and others to influence elections in democracies around the world, including in Europe,” Tom Burt, Microsoft’s vice president of customer trust and security, wrote in a blog post. U.S. intelligence agencies have previously identified Fancy Bear as two units within Russia’s military intelligence directorate, the GRU. In July 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for U.S. election interference hacking.