U.S., U.K. and Australia Warn of Iranian Hackers Exploiting Microsoft, Fortinet Flaws
Nov 17, 2021
Cybersecurity agencies from Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. on Wednesday released a joint advisory warning of active exploitation of Fortinet and Microsoft Exchange ProxyShell vulnerabilities by Iranian state-sponsored actors to gain initial access to vulnerable systems for follow-on activities, including data exfiltration and ransomware. The threat actor is believed to have leveraged multiple Fortinet FortiOS vulnerabilities dating back to March 2021 as well as a remote code execution flaw affecting Microsoft Exchange Servers since at least October 2021, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), and the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). The agencies did not attribute the activities to a specific advanced persistent threat (APT) actor. Targeted victims include Australian organizations and a wide range of entities across multiple U.S. critica