Powerful hacker attack hits Microsoft emails

More than 20,000 companies in the United States, as well as tens of thousands in Europe and Asia, have been hacked for vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Exchange Server (creating and managing e-mail) program, according to a source familiar with the US response. on the case. The information is from Reuters and has also been disseminated by a number of television and news agencies.

It is a matter of compromising through the so-called “back door” after customers have installed the new patch (update) of the company’s email software.

The breakthrough has created opportunities for remote access to the servers of credit unions, city governments and small businesses. Microsoft took urgent action as early as Tuesday, but breaches in the system continue. It is assumed that all victims use the web version of the Outlook e-mail service and do not use the resources for storing data in the so-called clouds.

However, a scan of connected devices showed that so far only 10% of computers have installed the email patch and the problem may grow. US authorities are currently clarifying how to notify all victims of the potential danger.

Microsoft said “affected customers should contact our support teams for additional assistance and resources.” The company initially claimed the attacks were “limited and targeted”. He then declined to comment on the scale of the problem, but said he was working with government organizations and security companies to help his clients.

However, the current attack is believed to have affected more users than the large-scale hacking of Sunburst in mid-December 2020. It “hit” customers of SolarWinds, a software company providing enterprise and government software in the United States. Then, because of the implementation of the hacker code on the Orion platform, Microsoft, the US Department of Energy and Finance, a number of US administrations, the State Department and other structures were affected.

Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested that hackers from Russia were involved in the large-scale cyberattack, and in late February, Microsoft President Brad Smith said directly during a hearing in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee that Sunburst could have taken place. only from external forces, more precisely from Russia.

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