Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Sophos Warns of State Sponsored Attacks Against EU Companies

Security firm Sophos has issued alerts on to two separate, but related attacks, targeting a European aeronautical parts supplier and a European medical company. In each case, the attackers are using an unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer to target their victims.

Security firm Sophos has issued alerts on to two separate, but related attacks, targeting a European aeronautical parts supplier and a European medical company. In each case, the attackers are using an unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer to target their victims.

The unpatched vulnerability was discovered by Google earlier this month.

The discovery made headlines shortly after Google said that it would begin notifying an unnamed subset of users if it is believed they are being targeted by a state-sponsored attack. A week after Google’s announcement, Microsoft issued a Security Advisory and FixIt tool that would address vulnerabilities within Microsoft XML Core Services.

Targeted State Sponsored Attacks“Microsoft is aware of active attacks that leverage a vulnerability in Microsoft XML Core Services 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted webpage using Internet Explorer… The vulnerability affects all supported releases of Microsoft Windows, and all supported editions of Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Office 2007,” the advisory sates.

While Sophos’ headlines may be somewhat overhyped, the fact that they discovered two separate domains in the EU that were compromised and leveraging the same exploit is noteworthy.

“We are continuing to try work with both the user who inadvertently visited the website and the hacked website’s owner, and will update you when we can release more information,” Sophos explained.

For now, Sophos and Microsoft strongly urge administrators and home users to deploy the mitigations and FixIt tool, in order to address the issue. A patch for the vulnerability is expected to be released in July.

“We know that a tried-and-trusted method of hacking into large companies and organisations is to target the supply chain. The theory goes that rather than try to hack a company which may have robust security practices and security teams, the bad actor can instead attack a smaller supplier who are less well placed to notice the security breach,” Sophos’s Graham Cluley added.

“Although security software can protect against this vulnerability, let’s hope that Microsoft can release a proper patch sooner rather than later.”

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.
Written By

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cyberwarfare

WASHINGTON - Cyberattacks are the most serious threat facing the United States, even more so than terrorism, according to American defense experts. Almost half...

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Cyberwarfare

Russian espionage group Nomadic Octopus infiltrated a Tajikistani telecoms provider to spy on 18 entities, including government officials and public service infrastructures.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.