• by Ray Schultz , July 3, 2019

The U.S. Cyber Command has warned that bad actors are attempting to hack government sites and plant malware by exploiting an Outlook vulnerability

“USCYBERCOM has discovered active malicious use of CVE-2017-11774 and recommends immediate #patching,” the command says in a Tuesday post on Twitter.

It adds: “Malware is currently delivered from: 'hxxps://customermgmt.net/page/macrocosm' #cybersecurity#infosec.”.”

ZDNet reports that the vulnerability has previously been used by Iranian hackers. 

The Outlook flaw had been discovered by researchers at SensePost in 2017, and by 2018 it had been “weaponized by an Iranian state-sponsored hacking group known as  APT33 (or Elfin), primarily known for developing the Shamoon disk-wiping malware,” ZDNet continues.

In a separate security development, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has warned state election officials about fraudulent emails targeting election workers, according to AP.

“The emails appear as if they come from a legitimate source and contain links that, if clicked, can open up election data systems to manipulation or attacks,” AP reports.