Security News

Our team has been tirelessly working several intrusions since January involving multiple 0-day exploits in Microsoft Exchange. If you use on-prem Microsoft Exchange Servers, you might want to assume you've been hit and start checking and then updating.

Microsoft says Beijing-backed hackers are exploiting four zero-day vulnerabilities in Exchange Server to steal data from US-based defense contractors, law firms, and infectious disease researchers. Gain access to an Exchange Server either using stolen passwords or by using zero-day vulnerabilities, and disguise themselves as a legitimate user.

Microsoft late Tuesday raised the alarm after discovering Chinese cyber-espionage operators chaining multiple zero-day exploits to siphon e-mail data from corporate Microsoft Exchange servers. In all, Microsoft said the attacker chained four zero-days into a malware cocktail targeting its Exchange Server product.

Microsoft has released emergency out-of-band security updates for all supported Microsoft Exchange versions that fix four zero-day vulnerabilities actively exploited in targeted attacks. These four zero-day vulnerabilities are chained together to gain access to Microsoft Exchange servers, steal email, and plant further malware for increased access to the network.

Google has fixed an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability in the Chrome 89.0.4389.72 version released today, March 2nd, 2021, to the Stable desktop channel for Windows, Mac, and Linux users. "Google is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2021-21166 exists in the wild," the Google Chrome 89.0.4389.72 announcement reads.

A zero-day exploit said to have been developed by the NSA was cloned and used by Chinese government hackers on Windows systems years before the cyber-weapon was leaked online, it is claimed. Check Point put out a report on Monday digging into Chinese malware it calls Jian, and argues persuasively this particular software nasty was spawned sometime around 2014 from NSA exploit code that eventually leaked online in 2017.

Cybersecurity researchers on Monday tied a string of attacks targeting Accellion File Transfer Appliance servers over the past two months to data theft and extortion campaign orchestrated by a cybercrime group called UNC2546. The attacks, which began in mid-December 2020, involved exploiting multiple zero-day vulnerabilities in the legacy FTA software to install a new web shell named DEWMODE on victim networks and exfiltrating sensitive data, which was then published on a data leak website operated by the CLOP ransomware gang.

Researchers have identified a set of threat actors with connections to the FIN11 and the Clop ransomware gang as the cybercriminal group behind the global zero-day attacks on users of the Accellion legacy File Transfer Appliance product. As noted, the point of entry for the attacks was Accellion FTA, a 20-year-old legacy product used by large corporations around the world.

Microsoft says that a high-severity Windows zero-day vulnerability patched during the February 2021 Patch Tuesday was exploited in the wild since at least the summer of 2020 according to its telemetry data. The actively exploited zero-day bug is tracked as 'CVE-2021-1732 - Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability.

Cyemptive Technologies announced Cyemptive Web Fortress, a solution that protects web servers against zero-day cyberattacks in real time. Unlike other solutions on the market, which only identify and work to eliminate "Known" threats after they have infiltrated a system, Cyemptive Web Fortress protects your data and web servers against real-time cyberattacks on a preemptive, immediate basis.