Thousands of computer servers have been targeted in a global hacking attack targeting VMware ESXi servers in Italy. The Italian National Cyber Security Agency (ACN) announced this on Sunday, warning organizations to take measures to protect their systems.
The hacker attack was intended to exploit a software vulnerability, ACN chief executive Roberto Baldoni said, adding that it was massive in nature.
A VMware spokesman said the software company was aware of the regulator’s notification and that it had issued patches in February 2021 when it discovered the vulnerability, which was now being exploited, and urged customers to apply the patch if they had not already done so.
The Italian news agency ANSA, citing ACN, reported that servers had been compromised in other European countries such as France and Finland, as well as the US and Canada.
Dozens of Italian organizations are likely to have been affected and many more have been warned to take action to avoid having their systems blocked.
Telecom Italia customers reported internet problems earlier on Sunday, but the two problems were not linked.
US cybersecurity officials said they were assessing the impact of the incidents.
“CISA is working with our public and private sector partners to assess the impact of these incidents and provide assistance where needed”
Earlier, it was reported that Italy’s National Cyber Security Agency’s incident response team recorded an increase in DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks by hacker groups of Russian origin.
Anonymous is a modern, international network of activists and hacktivists, whose individual nodes are loosely connected.
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the main international hacker network “Anonymous” declared cyber war on its Twitter page against the Russian government. They claimed responsibility for the DDoS attacks on the website of the television channel Russia Today.
The National Computer Incident Coordination Centre (under the Russian Federal Security Service) in its bulletin assessed the level of threat to Russia’s information resources as critical. On February 28, the websites of major news agencies were hacked. An appeal to Russian citizens to stop the war in Ukraine was posted on the websites of TASS, Kommersant and Izvestiya agencies, Fontanka, and Forbes.
On 24 March, Anonymous claimed to have hacked the websites of retail chains Auchan, Leroy Merlin, and Decathlon, which decided not to withdraw from the Russian market following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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