White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
Jen PsakiOn The Money: Senate votes to take over bill COVID-19 | Shares sink after Powell fails to calm nervous traders | The February employment report will provide the first measure of the Biden economy. Biden canceled second military target in Syria just minutes before strike: White House report says Shalanda Young could serve as acting WMO director said on Friday that the Biden administration is closely following the violation of a Microsoft e-mail application, which was allegedly made by Chinese hackers, calling it an “active threat” with “a large number of victims”.
“This is a significant vulnerability that could have a major impact. First of all, this is an active threat, “Psaki told reporters during the daily press conference.
She pointed at her tweet from the national security adviser Jake Sullivan
Jake SullivanFireEye finds evidence that Chinese hackers have exploited the defect of Microsoft’s e-mail application since January A Biden came across China? Iran, hostages and deja vu – Biden needs to do MORE Thursday night urging network administrators to fix their systems against a previously unknown vulnerability in the Microsoft Exchange Server e-mail application.
Microsoft said earlier this week that the flaw was being used by a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group to target a variety of organizations.
The cyber security group FireEye said in blog post late Thursday night that the hackers had been in at least one customer’s system since January and that they went after it “Retailers in the US, local governments, a university and an engineering firm”, along with a government in Southeast Asia and a telecommunications group in Central Asia.
There are likely to be other international casualties, with the Czech National Cyber and Information Security Bureau publishing a statement On Friday, he said he was assisting the affected organizations.
While Psaki declined to comment on Friday whether the federal agencies had been compromised, she urged network operators to “consider whether they have already been compromised” and, if so, “take appropriate action.”
“Everyone who runs these servers – government, private sector, academia – must act now to correlate them,” Psaki said. “We are concerned that there are a large number of victims and we are working with our partners to understand the scope of this. So it’s an ongoing process. ”
“We are still paying attention to what happened and to the next steps that need to be taken,” Psaki added.
Although there was no confirmation of the compromise of the federal agencies, the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an emergency directive earlier this week ordering all agencies to immediately investigate whether they have been violated and, if so, whether to deploy a patch or log out of Exchange Server.
CISA said the violation “poses an unacceptable risk to the agencies of the Federal Civil Executive. ”
Microsoft claimed earlier this week that the Chinese hacking group known as “Hafnium” is responsible for exploiting the vulnerabilities. Microsoft said the group had previously tried to steal information from infectious disease researchers, law firms, higher education institutions, defense contractors, political think tanks and non-governmental organizations.
The news comes as the federal government continues its investigation into the SolarWinds hack. The incident, which US intelligence officials said in January, was probably carried out by sophisticated Russian hackers, who could compromise up to 18,000 customers of the SolarWinds IT group.
As of last month, at least nine federal agencies and 100 private sector groups, including FireEye and Microsoft, have been confirmed to have been compromised in the SolarWinds hack, which lasted a year and was one of the biggest events. of cyber espionage in US history. .
Biden administration weighs in on how to respond to SolarWinds breach, which was one of several issues President Biden
Appointed by Trump State Department Joe Biden arrested in connection with the Capitol riot, FireEye finds evidence that Chinese hackers exploited the flaw in Microsoft’s January e-mail application Biden officials to travel to the border amid influx of young migrants discussed during his first incumbent conversation with the Russian president Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin How to Think of Russia Biden’s “New Hard Sanctions” Give Putin North Stream 2? Russia promises retaliation for new US sanctions: “We do not intend to endure this” MORE.
Washington Post reported last month that the administration will impose sanctions on Russia for the violation. Psaki said on February 23 that there would be a response from the administration “Weeks, not months.”