US aid agency system used to carry out cyberattacks by Russia: Microsoft

Breach discovered three weeks before Joe Biden is scheduled to meet Vladimir Putin in Geneva and at a moment of increased tension between the two nations.

Hackers linked to Russia’s main intelligence agency surreptitiously seized an email system used by the State Department’s international aid agency to burrow into the computer networks of human rights groups and other organizations of the sort that have been critical of President Vladimir V. Putin, Microsoft Corporation disclosed on Thursday.

Discovery of the breach comes only three weeks before President Biden is scheduled to meet Mr. Putin in Geneva, and at a moment of increased tension between the two nations — in part because of a series of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks emanating from Russia.

The newly disclosed attack was also