Outbreak Alert
Targeted by HAFNIUM
Firstly, if you are running an un-patched on-premise Microsoft Exchange version, you should upgrade immediately! This is a critical vulnerability that allows an attacker to access a desired user’s mailbox, requiring only the e-mail address of the user they wish to target! These details and more were disclosed by Volexity here. https://www.volexity.com/blog/2021/03/02/active-exploitation-of-microsoft-exchange-zero-day-vulnerabilities/ The vulnerabilities affect Exchange Server 2013, 2016 and 2019. Exchange Online is not affected. Learn More »
Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures
Background
In the article above, Volexity disclosed seeing these exploits as early as January 3, 2021. The first CVE discovered was CVE-2021-26855 being used to steal content from mailboxes. On further monitoring of the environments, it was observed the attacker can chain this vulnerability to others (including CVE-2021-27065), enabling remote code execution, and eventually lateral movement. More details are available from Volexity’s post.
Latest Development
Recent news and incidents related to cybersecurity threats encompassing various events such as data breaches, cyber-attacks, security incidents, and vulnerabilities discovered.
On March 2, 2020, Microsoft released the patches via MSRC:
https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2021/03/02/multiple-security-updates-released-for-exchange-server/
On March 5, Microsoft released additional details and mitigation techniques that can be used by customers unable to upgrade quickly:
https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2021/03/05/microsoft-exchange-server-vulnerabilities-mitigations-march-2021/
Microsoft published further information about nation-state attacks, and identified HAFNIUM specifically as the primary threat actor exploiting these vulnerabilities:
https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2021/03/02/multiple-security-updates-released-for-exchange-server/https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2021/03/02/new-nation-state-cyberattacks/https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2021/03/02/hafnium-targeting-exchange-servers/
On March 11, Microsoft announced detection of a new variant of DearCry ransomware was being used on vulnerable Exchange servers:
https://twitter.com/MsftSecIntel/status/1370236539427459076
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Threat Intelligence
Information gathered from analyzing ongoing cybersecurity events including threat actors, their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), indicators of compromise (IOCs), malware and related vulnerabilities.
References
Sources of information in support and relation to this Outbreak and vendor.