Ransomware hacking campaign targets Europe and North America, Italy warns – POLITICO

Italy’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN) warned on Sunday of a large-scale campaign to spread ransomware on thousands of computer servers across Europe and North America.

France, Finland and Italy are currently the most affected countries in Europe, while the United States and Canada also have a high number of targets, ACN warned, according to the Italian news agency. ANSA.

The attack targets vulnerabilities in VMware ESXi technology that were previously discovered but still leave many organizations vulnerable to hacker intrusions.

“These types of servers had been targeted by hackers in the past due to their vulnerability,” according to ACN. “However, this server vulnerability has not been fully patched, leaving an open door for hackers to carry out further attacks.”

France was the first country to detect the attack, according to ANSA.

French cybersecurity agency ANSSI issued an alert on Friday warning organizations to fix the vulnerability.

It is estimated that thousands of computer servers have been compromised worldwide and, according to analysts, this number is likely to increase. Experts are warning organizations to take steps to avoid being locked out of their systems.