The White House is urging computer network operators to take further measures to assess whether their systems target Microsoft Outlook email software violations. He said the recent amendments still left serious loopholes.
A White House official said this poses a positive threat to further development and we are urging airlines to take this issue seriously, adding that senior U.S. security officials are working to outline next steps after the breach.
CNN separately reported that the Biden administration is forming a task force to correct the violation. White House officials said in a statement that the government is fully responsive to the government.
Although Microsoft released a patch last week to fix bugs in Microsoft Outlook, the patch leaves the back door open, allowing access to the infected server and other attacks.
White House officials said: We cannot emphasize enough that corrections and mitigations are not corrective actions when servers are at risk. Any organization with weak servers should take steps to determine if they are the target.
A source told Reuters: More than 20 thousand American institutions have been hacked as a result of the violation. Microsoft blamed China for this, though Beijing denied any effect.
The breach plagued credit unions, municipalities, and small businesses, and prompted US officials to make efforts to reach victims after the FBI asked them to contact law enforcement.
Those affected appear to host the web version of Microsoft Outlook on their own devices rather than cloud service providers, avoiding the damage inflicted on many large companies and federal agencies.
A Microsoft representative said: We are working with the government and other agencies to guide customers, and the company has urged affected customers to apply software updates as soon as possible.
Neither the company nor the White House disclosed the size of the vulnerability. Microsoft initially said it was limited, but last week the White House expressed concern about the potential for large numbers of casualties.
The source told Reuters earlier: So far, only a small part of the affected network has entered the back door, but more attacks are expected.
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| Despite Microsoft's corrections the White House still calls for action |