ROME (AP) – Europe’s cybersecurity agencies are warning of a ransomware. Attack exploiting a 2-year-old computer bug as Italy faces widespread internet outages.
Italy’s prime minister’s office said Sunday night that “ransomware is already in circulation.” In a product made by cloud technology provider VMware. Among attacks affecting the country’s computer systems.
A Friday technical bulletin from a French cybersecurity. Agency said the attack campaigns targeted. The VMware ESXi hypervisor, which is used to watch virtual machines.
Palo Alto, California-based VMware. Fixed the bug in February 2021 but the attacks targeted older. Unpatched versions of the product.
The company said in a statement on Sunday. That its customers should take steps to apply the patch if they haven’t already done so. “Security hygiene is a key element in preventing ransomware attacks,” it says.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Sunday. That it was “working with our public and private sector partners to assess. The impacts of this reported incident and provide help where needed.”
The issue drew particular public attention in Italy on Sunday. as it coincided with a nationwide internet outage. Affecting telecommunications operator Telecom Italia. Which interfered with the streaming of the Spezia vs Napoli soccer match. But was largely resolved by the time of the next Derby della Madonnina between Inter. Milan and AC Milan. It is unclear if the outages are related to the ransomware attack.
