The National Nuclear Security Administration, the US govt body responsible for maintaining and designing the nation’s cache of nuclear weapons, was one of the targets of hacking from China recently. Software giant Microsoft announced that its SharePoint document management software was breached, and NNSA was one of the affecter users of the software.
The company said that hackers linked to Beijing are exploiting a vulnerability in SharePoint. As per reports, the flaw allows hackers to remotely run software code on victims’ servers, potentially allowing them to install malicious software and steal data.
However, no sensitive or classified information is known to have been compromised in the attack, as per a person with knowledge of the matter. National Nuclear Security Administration is an arm of the Energy Department, and is responsible for producing and dismantling nuclear arms. Other departments of the Energy Dept were also compromised, as per reports.
As per a report by Bloomberg citing Dutch cybersecurity firm Eye Security, around 400 government agencies using the software have been breached by the hackers. Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre has said organisations in the UK have also been hit.
Microsoft said it has released security updates that fully protect customers using all supported versions of SharePoint affected by the compromised vulnerability, and Microsoft Defender has been updated to address the risk. The company has advised its SharePoint users to apply the latest security updates, deploy Microsoft Defender for Endpoint protection, or equivalent threat solutions, Ensure the Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI) is turned on and configured correctly, and Rotate SharePoint Server ASP.NET machine keys.
