(Al Jazeera Media Network) A sweeping cyber espionage operation targeting Microsoft server software compromised about 100 different organizations over the weekend.
Two of the organizations that helped uncover the attack announced their findings on Monday.
On Saturday, Microsoft issued an alert about “active attacks” on self-hosted SharePoint servers, which are widely used by organizations to share documents and collaborate within others. SharePoint instances run off of Microsoft servers were unaffected.
Dubbed a “zero-day” because it leverages a previously undisclosed digital weakness, the hacks allow spies to penetrate vulnerable servers and potentially drop a backdoor to secure continuous access to victim organizations.
Vaisha Bernard, the chief hacker at Eye Security, a Netherlands-based cybersecurity firm which discovered the hacking campaign targeting one of its clients on Friday, said that an internet scan carried out with the Shadowserver Foundation had uncovered nearly 100 victims altogether – and that was before the technique behind the hack was widely known.
“It’s unambiguous,” Bernard said. “Who knows what other adversaries have done since to place other backdoors.”
He declined to identify the affected organizations, saying that the relevant national authorities had been notified.
The Shadowserver Foundation confirmed the 100 figure and said that most of those affected were in the United States and Germany, and that the victims included government organizations.
Another researcher said that, so far, the spying appeared to be the work of a single hacker or set of hackers.
“It’s possible that this will quickly change,” said Rafe Pilling, director of threat intelligence at Sophos, a British cybersecurity firm.
A Microsoft spokesperson said in an emailed statement that it had “provided security updates and encourages customers to install them”.
It was not clear who was behind the ongoing hack. The FBI said on Sunday it was aware of the attacks and was working closely with its federal and private-sector partners, but offered no other details.
Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre said in a statement that it was aware of “a limited number” of targets in the United Kingdom. A researcher tracking the hacks said that the campaign appeared initially aimed at a narrow set of government-related organisations.
