The cyberattacks and data breaches first reported in January 2021 reached new highs with reports of a significant number of organisations around the world compromised. Hackers enter through an installed back door to gain full access to user emails and passwords on affected servers, administrator privileges on the server, and access connected devices on the same network.
Microsoft has worked rapidly to assist those affected and released updates for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019 to patch vulnerabilities; however, this doesn’t retroactively undo any damage or remove backdoors already installed by nefarious attackers.
Some of the largest companies and federal government agencies breathed a sigh of relief as they were spared in the wave of attacks. Evidence showed all who were impacted ran web versions of Outlook and hosted them on their own machines, rather than use cloud providers. Small to medium businesses, local institutions, and local governments are known to be the primary victims of the attack.
Although the reports show that most of the attacks largely occurred in the US and UK, Australia is not immune as we’ve seen with the recent cyberattack affecting Channel 9’s live broadcasts in March.
What can you do to protect your clients?
The recent wave of cyberattacks presents an opportune conversation starter on the potentially damaging impacts of increasingly sophisticated and automated global cyberattacks, with education the key to raising greater awareness.
Manage Protect specialises in cloud and security software to protect business users from malicious attacks. For support and resources to help you in conversations with your customers, please access our Knowledge Base or reach out to your Account Manager.
