White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
Jen PsakiOn The Money: Senate Votes to Accept COVID-19 Relief Bill | Stocks plummet after Powell fails to appease troubled traders February Jobs Report to provide the first measure of Biden’s economy. Biden called off second military target in Syria minutes before strike: White House report says Shalanda Young could serve as acting OMB director said on Friday that the Biden administration is closely following the breach of a Microsoft e-mail application, reportedly made by Chinese hackers, who called it an “active threat” with a “large number of victims.”
“This is a significant vulnerability that could have far-reaching impacts. First, it’s an active threat, ”Psaki told reporters during the daily press session.
He pointed to one tweet of the national security adviser Jake Sullivan
Jake SullivanFireEye finds evidence that Chinese hackers exploited the defect in Microsoft’s email application since January. A Biden stumbles upon China? Iran, hostages and déjà vu: Biden needs to do more Thursday night, urging network administrators to patch their systems against a hitherto unknown vulnerability in the Microsoft Exchange Server email application.
Microsoft said earlier this week that the defect was being used by a Chinese state-sponsored piracy group to target several organizations.
He told the FireEye group about cybersecurity blog entry Thursday night that hackers had been on the system for at least one customer since January and had gone after “Retailers based in the United States, local governments, a university and an engineering company,” along with a Southeast Asian government and a Central Asian telecommunications group.
There are likely to be other international casualties, with the Czech national cybersecurity and intelligence office statement Friday saying it helps affected organizations.
Although Psaki declined to comment Friday on whether there has been a commitment to any federal agency, he urged network operators to “consider whether they have already committed” and, if so, to “take appropriate action.” “.
“Everyone who runs these servers (government, private sector, university) must act now to fix them,” Psaki said. “We are concerned that there will be a large number of casualties and we are working with our partners to understand the scope of this. Therefore, it is an ongoing process.”
“We continue to look closely at what happened and the next steps that need to be taken,” Psaki added.
Although there has been no confirmation of commitment from some federal agencies, the Security and Cybersecurity Agency (CISA) issued an emergency directive earlier this week ordering all agencies to immediately investigate whether ‘had failed and, if so, deployed a patch or disconnect from the Exchange Server.
CISA said the rape “it poses an unacceptable risk to the agencies of the civilian executive branch ”.
Microsoft alleged earlier this week that the Chinese pirate group known as “Hafnium” was responsible for exploiting the vulnerabilities. Microsoft noted that the group had previously tried to steal information from infectious disease researchers, law firms, higher education institutions, defense contractors, policy think tanks and non-governmental organizations.
The news comes as the federal government continues its investigation into the SolarWinds cut. This incident, which U.S. intelligence officials said was probably carried out in January by sophisticated Russian hackers, could compromise up to 18,000 customers of the SolarWinds computer group.
Until last month, it was confirmed that at least nine federal agencies and 100 private sector groups, including FireEye and Microsoft, were engaged in the one-year SolarWinds hacking and one of the largest cyberespionage events in history. of the United States. .
Biden administration is studying how to respond to SolarWinds’ non-compliance, which was one of several problems President Biden
Appointed by State Department Joe Biden, Trump arrested in connection with the Capitol Revolt, FireEye finds evidence that Chinese hackers exploited the defect in Microsoft’s email application since Biden officials traveled to the border amid the influx of young migrants MORE discussed during his first conversation in office with the Russian president Vladimir Putin
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The Washington Post reported last month, the administration would impose sanctions on Russia for non-compliance. Psaki said on February 23 that a response from the administration will arrive “Weeks, not months.”