Microsoft server hack has hit about 100 victims, researcher says
Tired of too many ads?
Remove Ads
Tired of too many ads?
Remove Ads
A sweeping cyberespionage operation targeting Microsoft server software compromised about 100 different organizations as of the weekend, one of the researchers who helped uncover the campaign said Monday.Microsoft on Saturday issued an alert about "active attacks" on self-managed SharePoint servers, which are widely used by government agencies and businesses to share documents within organisations. Dubbed a "zero day" because it leverages a previously undisclosed digital weaknesses, the hacks allow spies to penetrate vulnerable servers and potentially drop a back door to secure continuous access to victim organizations.Vaisha Bernard, the chief hacker at Eye Security , a Netherlands-based cybersecurity firm whichdiscovered the hacking campaigntargeting 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 back doors."He declined to identify the affected organizations, saying that the relevant national authorities had been notified. The ShadowServer Foundation didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.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.Microsoft said it had "provided security updates and encourages customers to install them," a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement. 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 Center said in a statement that it was aware of "a limited number" of targets in the United Kingdom.According to data from Shodan, a search engine that helps to identify internet-linked equipment, over 8,000 servers online could theoretically have already been compromised by hackers.Those servers include major industrial firms, banks, auditors, healthcare companies, and several U.S. state-level and international government entities."The SharePoint incident appears to have created a broad level of compromise across a range of servers globally," said Daniel Card of British cybersecurity consultancy, PwnDefend."Taking an assumed breach approach is wise, and it's also important to understand that just applying the patch isn't all that is required here."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
36 minutes ago
- Time of India
Trump's trip to Scotland as his new golf course opens blurs politics and the family's business
EDINBURGH: Lashed by cold winds and overlooking choppy, steel-gray North Sea waters, the breathtaking sand dunes of Scotland's northeastern coast rank among Donald Trump 's favorite spots on earth. "At some point, maybe in my very old age, I'll go there and do the most beautiful thing you've ever seen," Trump said in 2023, during his New York civil fraud trial, talking about his plans for future developments on his property in Balmedie, Aberdeenshire. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Cybersecurity Leadership MBA CXO MCA Project Management Design Thinking Others Data Science Degree PGDM Artificial Intelligence Data Analytics Operations Management Technology Management Product Management Healthcare Data Science others Digital Marketing Finance Public Policy healthcare Skills you'll gain: Duration: 10 Months MIT xPRO CERT-MIT xPRO PGC in Cybersecurity Starts on undefined Get Details At 79 and back in the White House , Trump is making at least part of that pledge a reality, landing in Scotland on Friday as his family's business prepares for the Aug. 13 opening of a new golf course bearing his name. Trump will be in Scotland until Tuesday, and plans to talk trade with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The Aberdeen area is already home to another of his courses, Trump International Scotland , and the Republican president is also visiting a Trump course near Turnberry, around 200 miles (320 kilometers) away on Scotland's southwest coast. Trump said upon arrival on Friday evening that his son is "gonna cut a ribbon" for the new course during his trip. Eric Trump also went with his father to break ground on the project back in 2023. Live Events Using a presidential overseas trip - with its sprawling entourage of advisers, White House and support staffers, Secret Service agents and reporters - to help show off Trump-brand golf destinations demonstrates how the president has become increasingly comfortable intermingling his governing pursuits with promoting his family's business interests. The White House has brushed off questions about potential conflicts of interest, arguing that Trump's business success before he entered politics was a key to his appeal with voters. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers called the Scotland swing a "working trip." But she added Trump "has built the best and most beautiful world-class golf courses anywhere in the world, which is why they continue to be used for prestigious tournaments and by the most elite players in the sport." Trump family's new golf course has tee times for sale Trump went to Scotland to play his Turnberry course during his first term in 2018 while en route to a meeting in Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But this trip comes as the new golf course is already actively selling tee times. "We're at a point where the Trump administration is so intertwined with the Trump business that he doesn't seem to see much of a difference," said Jordan Libowitz, vice president for the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It's as if the White House were almost an arm of the Trump Organization." During his first term, the Trump Organization signed an ethics pact barring deals with foreign companies. An ethics frameworks for Trump's second term allows them. Trump's assets are in a trust run by his children, who are also handling day-to-day operations of the Trump Organization while he's in the White House. The company has inked many recent, lucrative foreign agreements involving golf courses, including plans to build luxury developments in Qatar and Vietnam, even as the administration negotiates tariff rates for those countries and around the globe. Trump's first Aberdeen course sparked legal battles Trump's existing Aberdeenshire course, meanwhile, has a history nearly as rocky as the area's cliffs. It has struggled to turn a profit and was found by Scottish conservation authorities to have partially destroyed nearby sand dunes. Trump's company also was ordered to cover the Scottish government's legal costs after the course unsuccessfully sued over the construction of a nearby wind farm, arguing in part that it hurt golfers' views. And the development was part of the massive civil case, which accused Trump of inflating his wealth to secure loans and make business deals. Trump's company's initial plans for his first Aberdeen-area course called for a luxury hotel and nearby housing. His company received permission to build 500 houses, but Trump suggested he'd be allowed to build five times as many and borrowed against their values without actually building any homes, the lawsuit alleged. Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable last year and ordered his company to pay $355 million in fines - a judgment that has grown with interest to more than $510 million as Trump appeals. Golfers-in-chief Family financial interests aside, Trump isn't the first sitting U.S. president to golf in Scotland. That was Dwight D. Eisenhower, who played in Turnberry in 1959. George W. Bush visited the famed course at Gleneagles in 2005 but didn't play. Many historians trace golf back to Scotland in the Middle Ages. Among the earliest known references to game was a Scottish Parliament resolution in 1457 that tried to ban it, along with soccer, because of fears both were distracting men from practicing archery - then considered vital to national defense. The first U.S. president to golf regularly was William Howard Taft, who served from 1909 to 1913 and ignored warnings from his predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, that playing too much would make it seem like he wasn't working hard enough. Woodrow Wilson played nearly every day but Sundays, and even had the Secret Service paint his golf balls red so he could practice in the snow, said Mike Trostel, director of the World Golf Hall of Fame . Warren G. Harding trained his dog Laddie Boy to fetch golf balls while he practiced. Lyndon B. Johnson's swing was sometimes described as looking like a man trying to kill a rattlesnake. Bill Clinton, who liked to joke that he was the only president whose game improved while in office, restored a putting green on the White House's South Lawn. It was originally installed by Eisenhower, who was such an avid user that he left cleat marks in the wooden floors of the Oval Office by the door leading out to it. Bush stopped golfing after the start of the Iraq war in 2003 because of the optics. Barack Obama had a golf simulator installed in the White House that Trump upgraded during his first term, Trostel said. John F. Kennedy largely hid his love of the game as president, but he played on Harvard 's golf team and nearly made a hole-in-one at California's renowned Cypress Point Golf Club just before the 1960 Democratic National Convention. "I'd say, between President Trump and President John F. Kennedy, those are two of the most skilled golfers we've had in the White House," Trostel said. Trump, Trostel said, has a handicap index - how many strokes above par a golfer is likely to score - of a very strong 2.5, though he's not posted an official round with the U.S. Golf Association since 2021. That's better than Joe Biden's handicap of 6.7, which also might be outdated, and Obama, who once described his own handicap as an "honest 13." The White House described Trump as a championship-level golfer but said he plays with no handicap.
Time of India
37 minutes ago
- Time of India
India-UK FTA deal: Oyo's Ritesh Agarwal says Indian startups set for major uplift, job creation
Synopsis India and the UK signed their long-awaited Free Trade Agreement on July 24, which is expected to boost bilateral trade by around $34 billion annually. The deal was formalised in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his British counterpart Keir Starmer.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
37 minutes ago
- Business Standard
India-UK FTA protected sensitive sectors, will benefit all: Piyush Goyal
The pact will help boost exports of labour-intensive products like footwear, textiles and gems and jewellery, Piyush Goyal added Press Trust of India New Delhi Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal further termed the India-UK free trade agreement as "game-changing" and said it will benefit every section in India including farmers, youth, MSME sector and Industry. India has protected all sensitive sectors, including dairy, rice and sugar, in the free trade agreement with the UK, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday. The pact will help boost exports of labour-intensive products like footwear, textiles and gems and jewellery, he added. "We have protected all the sensitive sectors of have not opened for UK (those areas)....Zero compromise and extensive benefits makes it a phenomenal free trade agreement (FTA)," Goyal told reporters here. He added that the agreement will open doors for India to the developed world. With this, India would be able to ship 99 per cent of its exports to UK duty-free, he said. The India-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA), also called Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, was signed by Goyal and his counterpart Jonathan Reynolds in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday. It will bring "immense opportunities" to the Indian industry, the MSME sector, the workers, youth and fishermen, he said. Goyal asserted that the agreement was signed with the UK "confidently" on India's terms while protecting "sensitive items" like agriculture and ethanol. In an apparent dig at the Congress, he claimed that in several instances during the UPA rule, they opened the Indian markets in such a manner that they harmed the country. The minister said that the FTA will come into effect as soon as it gets UK Parliament's approval. He appealed to the Indian Industry to study the agreement and start looking for markets in various sectors including footwear, leather, toys, pharmaceuticals, gems and jewellery, food processing and service. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
