A Russian group of hackers is reported to have used a zero-day vulnerability within Windows operating system to spy on such targets as NATO, the Ukrainian and Polish governments, the European Union, and other targets. The vulnerability was named the Sandworm (CVE-2014-4114) by the authors of the report, iSIGHT Partners, a cybersecurity firm. The name comes from the discovered bits of Russian references within the code from the DUNE.
The vulnerability affects all of the supported versions of Windows. Windows XP does not seem to be affected.
This includes (along with all versions of each):
- Windows Vista
- Windows Server 2008
- Windows Server 2012
- Windows 7
- Windows 8/8.1
- Windows RT
The Sandworm allowed the hackers:
- A remote execution of an arbitrary code.
- To reference to external files (such as INF) from untrusted sources
- Execution of the downloaded files
- Steal information
The vulnerability was around for years and it’s not clear how many computers are affected. Microsoft already released a fix- to make sure you’re on the safe side, patch your computer immediately.