Microsoft warned that Chinese state-sponsored hackers are among those exploiting flaws in its SharePoint software to break into institutions globally, with the U.S. agency responsible for designing nuclear weapons now among those breached.
In a blog post, the tech giant identified two groups supported by the Chinese government, Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon, as leveraging flaws in the document-sharing software that rendered customers who run it on their own networks, as opposed to in the cloud, vulnerable. Another hacking group based in China, which Microsoft calls Storm-2603, also exploited them, according to the blog.
The number of companies and agencies subjected to breaches as a result of these exploits is meanwhile mounting: Hackers have used the SharePoint flaws to break into the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who wasn¡¯t authorized to speak publicly. Bloomberg also reported Monday that systems belonging to the U.S. Education Department, Florida¡¯s Department of Revenue and the Island General Assembly were compromised.
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