Organisations urged to check web servers as new ‘vulnerability’ makes malicious attack likely

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) says it is likely malicious actors will shortly begin using this vulnerability to attack web servers.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is advising organisations to urgently assess their web servers for exposure to a new vulnerability.

The NCSC says the vulnerability poses a serious risk to the security and integrity of data is asking organisations to take steps to address the risk of compromise.

This issue only affects groups operating web server infrastructure and not users operating home or personal devices, the computer security organisation said.

The NCSC been working with partners across Government and the private sector to address a serious vulnerability that has been identified in Apache Log4j (CVE-2021-44228).

This is an open-source java logging library used by many web applications and services.

The vulnerability, which Apache has released a patch to remedy, allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the webserver.

It says it is likely malicious actors will shortly begin using this vulnerability to attack web servers.

The NCSC says there is no evidence of any successful exploitation of this vulnerability in the country or any effect on services or data, but the risk of eventual compromise will persist for any entity until the vulnerability is addressed.

Anyone who has been a victim of cybercrime should report the issue to An Garda Síochána.