With a long coastline facing the South China Sea, Vietnam is prone to typhoons that are often deadly

International News via Reuters:

Tropical storm Wipha weakened after making landfall in northern Vietnam on Tuesday, with authorities on alert due to heavy rains that could cause flooding and mudslides, as the Philippines struggled with monsoon downpours that began last week.

Wipha hit the northern provinces of Ninh Binh and Thanh Hoa early on Tuesday afternoon with wind speeds of up to 74 kph (46 mph), slowing from around 100 kph on its approach, the national weather forecasting agency said.

With a long coastline facing the South China Sea, Vietnam is prone to typhoons that are often deadly and Wipha is the first major storm to hit this year.

Heavy rains of up to 50 cm (20 inches) were forecast to continue until Wednesday morning, and authorities warned people to watch out for landslides in mountainous areas and flooding in urban areas. Around 350,000 soldiers were put on standby.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had put coastal provinces on emergency footing as Wipha neared, with residents nervous after the devastation of Typhoon Yagi, which last year killed around 300 people and caused $3.3 billion of damage.

“I have learnt from last year’s mistakes, when we underestimated Yagi,” Ngo Van Thuong, a 40-year-old warehouse manager in Ha Long City, told Reuters as the storm neared. 

“Doorways and roofs are places that need more attention, and, since yesterday, I have also put sandbags on top of the roof,” Thuong said.

A fishing boat in Quang Ninh province capsized early on Tuesday, but all nine of the fishermen on board were saved, the Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper reported.

Airlines cancelled and rescheduled dozens of flights, and some airport, port and train services were suspended, though state media reported that airports in Quang Ninh and Haiphong had resumed operations on Tuesday afternoon. 

Photos on state media showed empty streets in the capital in Hanoi, where many workplaces were closed on Tuesday, including the U.S. embassy.

“We haven’t forgotten about Yagi, and have taken extra measures to cope with Wipha,” said a resident of Cat Ba Island in Haiphong.

FLOODING, CLOSURES IN PHILIPPINES

In the Philippines, Wipha has intensified already torrential monsoon rains, triggering knee- to waist-deep flooding across parts of the country and forcing a second day of school closures, flight cancellations and the suspension of government work.

Thousands of families remain in evacuation centres as relentless rains, which swept through the country’s north last week, continue to batter the country.  

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., currently on an official visit to the United States, said government agencies had been mobilised to provide assistance.

“Relief goods are ready and are being delivered to affected areas, along with medical teams,” Marcos said in a recorded message. “We’re ensuring transport, electricity, and water supplies are stable for those affected.”

On Sunday, Wipha, then at full typhoon strength, barrelled across Hong Kong and southern China. As the storm passed Hong Kong, more than 110 mm of rain fell within three hours and maximum wind gusts exceeded 167 kph at some points, prompting authorities to issue their highest storm warning.

Reporting by Khanh Vu in Hanoi, Thinh Nguyen in Ha Long, and Karen Lema and Mikhail Flores in Manila; Editing by John Mair and Sharon Singleton

Microsoft on Saturday issued an alert about “active attacks” on self-hosted SharePoint servers

International News via Reuters:

A sweeping cyber espionage operation targeting Microsoft server software compromised about 100 different organizations as of the weekend, two of the organizations that helped uncover the campaign said on Monday.

Microsoft on Saturday issued an alert about “active attacks” on self-hosted SharePoint servers, which are widely used by organizations to share documents and collaborate within organisations. SharePoint instances run off of Microsoft servers were unaffected.

Dubbed a “zero-day” because it leverages a previously undisclosed digital weakness, the hacks allow spies to penetrate vulnerable servers and potentially drop a backdoor to secure continuous access to victim organizations.

Vaisha Bernard, the chief hacker at Eye Security, a Netherlands-based cybersecurity firm, which discovered the hacking campaign targeting one of its clients on Friday, said that an internet scan carried out with the Shadowserver Foundation had uncovered nearly 100 victims altogether – and that was before the technique behind the hack was widely known.

“It’s unambiguous,” Bernard said. “Who knows what other adversaries have done since to place other backdoors.”

He declined to identify the affected organizations, saying that the relevant national authorities had been notified.

The Shadowserver Foundation confirmed the 100 figure and said that most of those affected were in the United States and Germany and that the victims included government organizations.

Another researcher said that, so far, the spying appeared to be the work of a single hacker or set of hackers.    

“It’s possible that this will quickly change,” said Rafe Pilling, director of Threat Intelligence at Sophos, a British cybersecurity firm.

Microsoft said it had “provided security updates and encourages customers to install them,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

It was not clear who was behind the ongoing hack. The FBI said on Sunday it was aware of the attacks and was working closely with its federal and private-sector partners, but offered no other details. Britain’s National Cyber Security Center said in a statement that it was aware of “a limited number” of targets in the United Kingdom. A researcher tracking the campaign said that the campaign appeared initially aimed at a narrow set of government-related organizations.

The pool of potential targets remains vast. According to data from Shodan, a search engine that helps to identify internet-linked equipment, over 8,000 servers online could theoretically have already been compromised by hackers.

Those servers include major industrial firms, banks, auditors, healthcare companies, and several U.S. state-level and international government entities. 

“The SharePoint incident appears to have created a broad level of compromise across a range of servers globally,” said Daniel Card of British cybersecurity consultancy, PwnDefend. 

“Taking an assumed breach approach is wise, and it’s also important to understand that just applying the patch isn’t all that is required here.”

Reporting by James Pearson and Raphael Satter, Editing by Nick Zieminski and Marguerita Choy