U.S. issues warning after Microsoft says China hacked its mail server program

[riversedge]

Source: nbc news



All federal government agencies have until noon Friday to download the latest software update to block the perpetrator.

March 3, 2021, 5:33 PM CST By Kevin Collier

The U.S. has issued an emergency warning after Microsoft said it caught China hacking into its mail and calendar server program, called Exchange.

The perpetrator, Microsoft said in a blog post, is a hacker group that the company has "high confidence" is working for the Chinese government and spies primarily on American targets. The latest software update for Exchange blocks the hackers, prompting the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, to issue a rare emergency directive that requires all government networks do so.

CISA, the U.S.'s primary defensive cybersecurity agency, rarely exercises its authority to demand that the entire U.S. government take steps to protect its cybersecurity. The move was necessary, the agency said, because the Exchange hackers are able "to gain persistent system access." All government agencies have until noon Friday to download the latest software update.

In a separate blog post, Microsoft Vice President Tom Burt wrote that the hackers have recently spied on a wide range of American targets, including disease researchers, law firms and defense contractors............................................

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/u-s-issues-warning-after-microsoft-says-china-hacked-its-n1259522?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

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Image: Microsoft campus
A building on the Microsoft headquarters campus in Redmond, Wash., in 2014.Stephen Brashear / Getty Images file

[Roy Rolling]

1. Mail Servers

There was an outage two days ago that looked suspicious. I had previously hosted all my mail on my own servers until recently, now I know why. If I had any sensitive or confidential information I’d be more worried that someone was reading my emails.

[Bo Zarts]

2. I'm glad I use Google's G-Mail. It's SO much safer!

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Are these foreign hackers feeding info to domestic QAnon operators?

Maybe even some office-holders? The fact that we never seem to put them out of business suggests to me they are useful to someone or something important over here. Foreigners can spy on us illegally and suffer no consequences. That is not true for domestic spying operations.