After a flaw was discovered in Microsofts Exchange Email flow, officials now believe over 7,000 servers were affected and only half have been fully secured.

After further investigation, malicious software was detected on over 2,300 machines but this was soon resolved. The National Cyber Security Centre played a major role in detecting the malicious software and helping all the companies remove this from their systems, the agency stated it was 'vital' that the affected businesses took action to secure their email servers immediately.

According to the NCSC ransomware groups have begun using the flaw to install their malicious programs, though there was no evidence of widespread ransomware attacks on UK companies so far. However, the NCSC is particularly concerned about SME's that might not know about the breach.

Initially, the flaw was being exploited by a hacking group attempting to gain remote access to email servers to steal personal data. But once Microsoft warned the world they had identified the flaw and urged users to download the latest security patches, other hacker groups quickly became familiar with the flaw and how to exploit it for personal gain. The NCSC stated that the true scale of this problem is still emerging with thousands of systems vulnerable in the UK alone. While many systems are still at risk and thousands had malicious software installed, the number of cases of this being used to steal personal info or lock people out with ransomware is still fairly low.

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