Defense Ministry operations were hampered for several days due to a cyber attack. That exploited the widespread vulnerability in Log4j.
The Ministry of Defense was hit by a cyber attack late last week. Belga knows. The attack severely hampered the ministry’s activities for several days. The attackers exploited the previously discovered zero-day vulnerability in Log4j. This came to light two weeks ago and affects countless organizations worldwide.
Prompt action
“The Defense Department detected an attack on its computer network with Internet access on Thursday,” a military spokesman told De Standaard. “Quarantine measures were quickly taken to isolate the affected areas. The priority is to keep the Defense network operational.” Experts worked throughout the weekend to contain the problem, continue activities and alert partners.
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Department of Defense hit by Log4Shell attack
Who or what is behind the attack, the Defense Department would not say. So it is unclear whether this was an automated attack or a targeted campaign, although it is most likely that our country was the victim of a targeted attack. Indeed, several large hacker groups, including state-sponsored groups, exploit the Log4Shell vulnerability in Log4j to break into the network of interesting targets.
Nor is the Defense Department commenting on the current situation. So we don’t know if the attack has been fully resolved yet. Belga says it has not received e-mails from Defense since Friday and, based on that, suspects that mail traffic has been disrupted.
Log4Shell and Log4j
Log4Shell is a vulnerability in Apache’s popular Log4j software that allows attackers to execute proprietary code from across the Internet. Log4j is an open-source component that software builders worldwide integrate into their own applications. It is responsible for collecting logs, among other things to generate error messages. The Log4j vulnerability thus affects not just one piece of software, but thousands. That makes it very difficult for organizations to determine with certainty exactly how vulnerable they are. Patching is also complex, since different programs must receive updates.