Microsoft servers being hacked 'faster than anyone can count'

The key vulnerabilities in the Microsoft business email servers have left cyber security experts flummoxed as this freeforall attack opportunity is now being exploited by vast numbers of criminal gangs statebacked threat actors and opportunistic script kiddies researchers at FSecure have warnedTo make matters worse proofofconcept automated attack scripts are being made publicly available making it possible for even unskilled attackers to quickly gain remote control of a vulnerable Microsoft Exchange ServerTens of thousands of servers have been hacked around the world Theyre being hacked faster than we can count said Antti Laatikainen senior security consultant at the cyber security firm FSecureAccording to FSecure analytics only about half of the Exchange servers visible on the Internet have applied the Microsoft patches for these vulnerabilitiesNever in the past 20 years that Ive been in the industry has it been as justified to assume that there has been at least a digital knock at the door for every business in the world with Exchange installed Because access is so easy you can assume that majority of these environments have been breached Laatikainen stressedTaiwanese electronics and computer maker Acer has already been hit by a ransomware attack where the hackers are demanding 50 million the largest known ransom to dateAccording to Bleeping Computer hackers have accessed Acer documents that include financial spreadsheets bank balances and bank communications compromising its network via a Microsoft Exchange server vulnerabilityEarlier reports have claimed that five different hacking groups including Chinabacked hacking group called Hafnium are exploiting vulnerabilities in the business email servers of MicrosoftMicrosoft has released an emergency patch for its Exchange Server product the most popular mail server worldwideAccording to the FSecure report Countries currently seeing the most detections in descending order are Italy Germany France the UK the US Belgium Kuwait Sweden the Netherlands and TaiwanLaatikainen expects that companies will start reporting breaches soonThe GDPR data protection regulation demands that theft of personal data must be reported to the data protection authorities within 72 hoursYou have to expect that the number of GDPR breach reports coming in the next few weeks will be historic Your company doesnt have to be on the long list of organisations reporting breaches tomorrow if you take the right steps today he notedCompanies that have security monitoring capabilities in place along with networking monitoring and effective path policy can fight back There are a ton of things they can do manually to prevent a full disaster I just encourage them to do them immediately the security expert suggestedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever