WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Hackers behind the powerful set of digital intrusion tools exposed this week have gathered a worrying number of victims, the White House said on Friday, the latest indication that the cyber espionage campaign targeting Exchange’s Microsoft Corp. is a serious threat issue.
“This is a significant vulnerability that could have far-reaching impacts,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “We are concerned that there are large numbers of casualties.”
Operating tools that exploit four previously unknown vulnerabilities, the alleged Chinese group Microsoft calls “Hafnium” entered January’s e-mail servers, remotely and silently siphoning information from inboxes without having to send a single malicious email or dishonest attachment.
Few hackers have been made public so far. Microsoft said this week that its targets include infectious disease researchers, law firms, higher education institutions, defense contractors, political think tanks and non-governmental groups.
On Tuesday, researchers at Secureworks from Dell Technologies said the burglary rate began to rise overnight last Sunday, something others read as an indication that hackers had stepped up their activity because they knew they would be exposed.
Much of the activity was concentrated in the United States, but the victims appeared worldwide.
The Norwegian authorities said they saw the “limited” use of hacking tools in their country. The municipality of Prague and the Czech Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs were among those affected, according to a European cyber official informed about the matter.
The official said that the ease of operation means that hackers actually enjoyed a “free buffet” from the beginning of the year.
The concern now is that others may join the holiday.
Although Microsoft has released fixes for vulnerabilities and the US government – including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan – has asked users to update their software, in practice not everyone is. Meanwhile, hackers are studying solutions to reverse Hafnium tools and take them for granted.
Once this happens, experts say, targeting can become even more aggressive.
Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Dan Grebler and David Gregorio