The restart of external mail traffic is taking place piecemeal. The target is Feb. 12 for full restoration of e-mail service.
Following the Log4Shell attack on the Defense Ministry a month ago, internal mail traffic was restored relatively quickly, according to Belga news agency. Problems with mail traffic remain acute to this day. Anyone who tried to mail with an @mil.be address has been getting a message for four weeks that the e-mail message cannot be sent.
Until yesterday, military personnel could not even look something up on the Internet. That made HR applications to report guard duty or other issues unusable. Until today, the HR service remains offline, according to the latest reports.
‘No impact at operational level’
Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder (PS) today gave an official status update to Belga around the recovery following the cyber attack. “The Defense network was indeed cut off from the Internet for quite a while. This was necessary to check that everything was safe. Since Tuesday afternoon, e-mails can be sent out again.”
The administration stressed that the cyber attack had no impact at the operational level. “Those communications are going through other channels,” it said. A full restoration of mail traffic is given a target date of Feb. 12.
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, as different programs need updates. Use our guide to check for yourself whether your organization has Log4j vulnerabilities in Java projects.
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