Microsoft SharePoint Hack: Hundreds of Servers Compromised

A recent wave of cyberattacks on Microsoft's server software was hit at least 400 victims, many tied to Western government agencies. We don't yet know the full list of the victims' organizations. Microsoft linked some of the attacks to the Chinese regime, but Beijing denied the accusations. Microsoft says the attackers exploited a software vulnerability. According to the Wall Street Journal, this all started back in May at a hacking contest in Berlin. A Vietnamese researcher demonstrated how to effectively break into Microsoft's SharePoint systems, Microsoft's version of Google Drive. Following this contest, Microsoft released a security patch in July, but the bugs were already being exploited a day before the patch went live. No one knows how the hackers figured it out. On top of that, researchers discovered Microsoft's fix didn't fully work, and hackers could still break in. Soon, a cybersecurity firm called iSecurity discovered a way to get backdoor access into SharePoint servers. This gave hackers remote access to the servers. Microsoft rushed out another fix to block the attack for good. But by that point, dozens of organizations using Microsoft's SharePoint servers had already been compromised. That included U.S. and European government agencies, local institutions, and universities. The Energy Department later confirmed it was affected, but stated no sensitive information was exposed. However, according to Bloomberg, the National Nuclear Security Administration was impacted heavily due to this exploit.