Old VMware is the target of ransomware assaults in Europe: Agencies

As major internet failures hit Italy, cybersecurity organisations in Europe are issuing alerts about ransomware attacks that take advantage of a two-year-old computer fault.

The attacks on the country’s computer systems were caused, according to the Italian prime minister’s office, by “ransomware already in circulation” in a VMware product.

According to a French cybersecurity agency’s technical alert published on Friday, the assault operations target VMware ESXi hypervisors, which are used to keep track of virtual machines.

The problem was resolved in February 2021 by Palo Alto, California-based VMware, but the attacks now target older, unpatched versions of the product.

Customers should act to apply the fix if they haven’t already, the business advised in a statement released on Sunday.

“Security hygiene is a critical role in preventing ransomware attacks,” the report claims.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stated in a statement posted on Sunday that it was “working with our public and commercial sector partners to examine the impact of these reported breaches and provide help where warranted.”

The Telecom Italia internet outage on Sunday, which prevented the streaming of the Spezia vs. Napoli soccer game but appeared to be mostly repaired by the time of the ensuing Derby della Madonnina between Inter Milan and AC Milan, garnered a lot of attention from the Italian public.