Four compromises in the Microsoft Exchange Server software have reportedly led to over 30,000 US governmental and commercial organizations having their emails hacked, according to a report by KrebsOnSecurity.

There are also reports of “tens of thousands of email servers” hacked per Wired. Microsoft has issued a patch to address the exploits however security experts tell Krebs that the detection and cleanup process will be a massive effort for the thousands of state and city governments, fire and police departments, school districts, financial institutions, and other organizations that were affected.

Microsoft says that the vulnerabilities allowed hackers to gain access to email accounts. It also gave them the ability to install malware that could let them back into those servers later.

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Krebs and Wired allege that Hafnium, a Chinese hacking group is responsible for the attack. Although Microsoft hasn’t revealed the full extent of the attack, it also points to the same group as having exploited the vulnerabilities. It also says that it has “high confidence” that the group is state-sponsored.

KrebsOnSecurity, stays the attack has been ongoing since 6th January 2020 continuing till late February. Microsoft has released several security updates to fix the vulnerabilities, suggesting that users install them immediately. The compromise does not affect organisations using Microsoft Exchange Online though. This is because the exploit was only present on self-hosted servers running Exchange Server 2013, 2016, or 2019.

A Microsoft spokesperson said that it is “working closely with the [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency], other government agencies, and security companies, to ensure we are providing the best possible guidance and mitigation for our customers,” and that “[t]he best protection is to apply updates as soon as possible across all impacted systems”.

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