The White House on Sunday urged computer network operators to take further steps to determine if their systems were hacked into Microsoft Corp.’s Outlook email program. have been selected as the target. A recently released software patch still left serious security holes.
“This is an active threat that is still developing and we urge operators to take it very seriously,” a White House official said, adding that senior US security officials were working to decide which ones were next Steps should be taken after the breach.
CNN reported separately on Sunday that the Biden administration had set up a task force to combat the hack. The White House official said in a statement the government was making “a full government response”.
While Microsoft released a patch last week to fix bugs in its email software, the agent still leaves a so-called back door open that allows access to compromised servers and continues further attacks by others.
“We cannot stress enough that patching and downgrading is not a fix if the servers have already been compromised, and it is important that any organization with a vulnerable server take action to see if they have already been targeted,” said the White House official.
A source already told Reuters that more than 20,000 US organizations had been compromised by the hack Microsoft accused China, although Beijing denies any role.
The return channels for remote access can affect credit unions, city governments, and small businesses, and have led US officials to reach out to victims. The FBI asked her to contact law enforcement on Sunday.
Those affected appear to be hosting web versions of Microsoft’s Outlook email program on their own computers instead of cloud providers, potentially sparing many large corporations and federal agencies, research records show.
A Microsoft representative said Sunday it was working with the government and others to guide customers, and the company urged affected customers to apply software updates as soon as possible.
Neither the company nor the White House determined the extent of the hack. Microsoft initially said it was limited, but the White House last week expressed concern about the potential for “large numbers of casualties”.
So far, only a small percentage of the infected networks have been compromised through the back door, the source previously told Reuters, but further attacks are expected.
