Microsoft has released older versions of SharePoint in life support. Hackers use this advantage

Hundreds of organizations This week was violated by data around the world, as a set of hackers hurriedly exploited the recently discovered vulnerability in older versions of the Microsoft file sharing tool. The field of violations is currently urgent and complex: Institutions that are long -term SharePoint users can be more risky by continuing to use this service, just as Microsoft is reducing the support of the platform in favor of newer presentations.

Microsoft said on Tuesday that in addition to other actors, several China -related hackers were also using the defect, specifically available in older versions of SharePoint, which are self -testing. This does not affect the newer, SharePoint cloud -based version that Microsoft has been encouraging customers for many years. Bloomberg reported for the first time on Wednesday that one of the victims of the US National Nuclear Security Bureau is the monitoring and maintenance of US nuclear weapons.

SharePoint servers “on -site” or managing themselves are a popular goal for hackers, because organizations often adjust them to open the Internet and then forget them or do not want to replace their budgets. Even if the reforms are available, the owner may neglect their actions. However, this is not the case with the drawback that increased the wave of attacks this week. While this is due to the previous vulnerability of SharePoint discovered in May in the PWN2own hack race in Berlin, the patch that Microsoft released earlier this month was incomplete, meaning that even organizations that carried out their security accuracy were caught. Microsoft struggled this week to release a reform, or what the company called “stronger protection” in its security alert.

“In Microsoft, our commitment – which is in the safe future initiative – meets to meet the customers who are there,” a spokesman for Microsoft said in a statement. “This means supporting organizations in a complete range of cloud adoption, including internal system management systems.”

Microsoft still supports SharePoint 2016 and 2019 server versions with security updates and other reforms, but both reaches what Microsoft calls “end support” on July 14, 2026. SharePoint Server 2013 has already been completed and has received only the most important security updates through a paid service called “SharePoint Server Edition”. As a result, all versions of the SharePoint server are increasingly part of the digital back water, where the convenience of continuing the software is highly risk and potentially exposure to users – especially when SharePoint servers are exposed to the Internet.

“Years ago, Microsoft put SharePoint as a safer replacement for Windows file sharing tools at the old school, so organizations such as government agencies have invested in launching those servers, and now they only run at a cloud that includes a subscription,” Jake Williams said. “So Microsoft tries to surprise preservatives by charging extensive support.