In this illustration, the Minecraft logo is seen on the smartphone screen.
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A critical vulnerability in a widely used software tool – one that quickly became exploited in the online game Minecraft – is rapidly emerging as a major threat to organizations around the world. world.
“The internet is on fire right now,” said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. “People are scrambling to patch it,” he said, “and all kinds of people scrambling to exploit it.” He said Friday morning that in the 12 hours since the bug’s existence was revealed it had been “fully weaponized,” meaning counterfeiters had developed and distributed tools to exploit it.
This vulnerability is possibly the worst computer vulnerability discovered in years. It has been discovered in a common utility in cloud servers and enterprise software used across industry and government. Unless it’s fixed, it allows criminals, spies, and newbies to programming easily to gain access to internal networks where they can steal valuable data, install malware, delete important information and more.
“It’s hard for me to think of a company without risk,” said Joe Sullivan, chief security officer of Cloudflare, whose online infrastructure protects websites from malicious actors. Not to mention millions of servers already have it installed and experts say the issue will not be known for the next few days.
Amit Yoran, CEO of cybersecurity firm Tenable, calls it “the biggest, most critical security hole of the past decade” — and possibly the biggest in the history of modern computing.
The vulnerability, called ‘Log4Shell’, is rated 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 by the Apache Software Foundation, the organization that oversees the development of the software. Anyone with an exploit can get full access to an unpatched computer using the software,
The fact that the vulnerability allows an attacker to access a web server – without a password – with extreme ease is what makes it so dangerous, experts say.
New Zealand’s Computer Emergency Response Team was among the first to report that the vulnerability is being “actively exploited in the wild” just hours after it was publicly reported on Thursday and a patch released.
The vulnerability resides in the open-source Apache software used to run websites and other web services, reported by Chinese tech giant Alibaba on Nov. 24. It took two weeks. to develop and release a fix.
But patching systems around the world can be a complicated task. Although most organizations and cloud service providers like Amazon can update their web servers easily, the same Apache software is also often embedded in third-party programs, which These programs are usually only updated by their owners.
Yoran, of Tenable, said organizations need to assume they have been compromised and act quickly.
The first clear signs of an exploit appeared in Minecraft, an online game hugely popular with kids and owned by Microsoft. Meyers and security expert Marcus Hutchins said Minecraft users used it to execute programs on other users’ computers by pasting a short message into a chat box.
Microsoft says it has released a software update for Minecraft users. “Customers apply the protected fix,” it said.
The researchers say they have found evidence that the vulnerability can be exploited in servers operated by companies like Apple, Amazon, Twitter, and Cloudflare.
Cloudflare’s Sullivan says we have no indication his company’s servers have been compromised. Apple, Amazon and Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
