Report: African Microsoft Office Users are at a High Risk of Attacks via Vulnerabilities
According to Russian internet security company Kaspersky, more Microsoft Office vulnerabilities are being exploited globally than in Q1 2022. These attacks represented 82 percent of all platform-specific exploits in Q2 2022.
The most recent Kaspersky quarterly malware report supports this. The company claims that a rise in assaults using MS Office vulnerabilities was also observed in the META (Middle East, Turkey, and Africa) region.
During the second quarter, hackers most frequently utilized the MS Office vulnerabilities CVE-2021-40444, CVE-2017-0199, CVE-2017-11882, and CVE-2018-0802 to attack over 551,000 users.
The Kaspersky solutions blocked these efforts, which were documented in the study. According to the organization, if the attackers were successful, they would have been able to remotely execute malicious code to get access to victims’ computers and read, modify, or delete data without their knowledge.
| Vulnerability | Attacked users in Q2 2022 | Dynamics of attacked users, % Q2 2022 vs Q1 2022 |
| CVE-2021-40444 | 4,886 | 696% |
| CVE-2017-0199 | 60,132 | 59% |
| CVE-2017-11882 | 140,623 | 5% |
| CVE-2018-0802 | 345,827 | 3% |
The comparative impact of Microsoft Office security flaws on users in Q2 2022 and related dynamics.
Africa’s Microsoft Offices Vulnerabilities Exploited
Over the past quarter, there were 20% more users in Kenya were targeted by these Microsoft Office suite vulnerabilities.
Users being assaulted increased by 9% in Nigeria. Although there were 3% fewer users attacked in South Africa in Q2 than Q1 due to these vulnerabilities, the global trend toward an increase in these attacks keeps security operations centers on high alert.
Experts from Kaspersky discovered that in Q2 2022, about 5,000 people were attacked globally using exploits for the vulnerability, known as CVE-2021-40444, which is eight times more than in Q1 2022.
A flaw in the MSHTML rendering engine of Internet Explorer is identified as CVE-2021-40444. Because some Windows software, such as parts of Microsoft Office, depends on Internet Explorer’s engine for interacting with web information, Internet Explorer is a component of Microsoft’s operating systems.
We anticipate CVE-2021-exploitation 40444’s to rise internationally because it is quite simple to use. Social engineering techniques are used by criminals to trick their victims into opening harmful documents, according to Alexander Kolesnikov, a malware expert at Kaspersky.
The malicious script is then downloaded and run by the Microsoft Office program. Installing the vendor’s patch, using security tools that can identify vulnerability exploitation, and educating staff about current cyberthreats are all essential precautions.
Visit Securelist.com to learn more about malware threats in Q2 2022.
