Out of the Box Solutions Blog

Bad news—thanks to four flaws in Microsoft Exchange Server software, over 60,000 individuals and organizations have had their emails stolen by a cyberespionage unit based in China, with over 30,000 of those targeted being in the United States. Let’s review what has taken place up to the time of this writing, and what can be done about it.

Based on how the rest of the year has gone, it should come as no surprise that 2020 has come to an end with the news that the United States was targeted in the largest cyberespionage attack ever. Let’s go into what this attack signifies, and what we should all take away from it.

We’re always talking about the importance of keeping your software up to date. It is the very best way to avoid the vulnerabilities that can cause data breaches. When the Department of Homeland Security tells organizations to patch their software, however, it is urgent. This is exactly what has happened recently regarding the world’s most utilized Internet browser, Google Chrome.

Have you ever heard the phrase zero-day threat? Basically, they are the scariest threats out there, because they are unaddressed and unresolved by the software developer, all while being actively exploited in the wild. This effectively gives the developer zero days to address the issue before it becomes a problem. Today, one of the most dangerous threats of the zero-day variety takes advantage of a weakness in Internet Explorer - but there is now a patch for it.