Microsoft President warns of Russian intelligence infiltration in gaming communities
Recently, classified US documents were spread in a Minecraft Discord server.
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What you need to know
Microsoft President Brad Smith has said that Russian intelligence is attempting to “penetrate” gaming communities in order to spread information. Notably, this statement follows reports from earlier this week that indicate classified US documents were recently leaked and spread throughout a Discord server for Minecraft, one of the most popular games of all time.
When asked about the leak atSemafor’s World Economy Summit, Smith warned that “for the last several months, Microsoft’s digital threat analysis team has been identifying efforts by the Russians to basically penetrate some of these gaming communities.”
“We’ve been advising governments about this,” Smith continued. “You know, it’s the Wagner Group, it is Russian intelligence, and they’re in part using this [gaming communities] to get information into circulation.”
Microsoft President @BradSmi says the Wagner Group and Russian intelligence have been working to penetrate gaming communities to use them “as a place to get information into circulation.” pic.twitter.com/F7CCmaqOvuApril 12, 2023
Though he declined to say if Russian intelligence was responsible for the Pentagon leaks themselves, Smith did allege that these groups were involved with the spread of the sensitive information.
“That’s what happened here,” he said. “It included the Discord channel around Minecraft. It included others of these … They’re going to publish information somewhere, it [gaming communities] just happens to be a good place for them to get the information into circulation and then ultimately, journalists find it.”
The leaked documents were also shared on Twitter, 4chan, and Telegram.Reportedly, they contain information about the state of the war in Ukraine, China, “defense and security issues in the Middle East,” and more. Chris Meagher, the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, said that some of the documents “appear to have been altered.”
The leak is being actively investigated by various agencies of the US government. Recently,US President Joe Biden saidthat the Justice Department is “getting close” to identifying the culprit responsible for the leaks.
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Brendan Lowry is a Windows Central writer and Oakland University graduate with a burning passion for video games, of which he’s been an avid fan since childhood. He’s been writing for Team WC since the summer of 2017, and you’ll find him doing news, editorials, reviews, and general coverage on everything gaming, Xbox, and Windows PC. His favorite game of all time is probably NieR: Automata, though Elden Ring, Fallout: New Vegas, and Team Fortress 2 are in the running, too. When he’s not writing or gaming, there’s a good chance he’s either watching an interesting new movie or TV show or actually going outside for once.Follow him on X(Twitter).
