LA County Organizations Warned About Cyber Security Threats

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Companies and organizations in Los Angeles County are being warned about a recent slew of cybersecurity threats from hackers.

The L.A. County Sheriff's Department Fraud & Cyber Crimes Bureau (FCCB) Thursday announced that it had received reports that the servers of several organizations had been compromised, including those of law enforcement agencies.

A recent "server vulnerability" allows "attackers to gain persistent system access, compromise authentication methods, and exfiltrate data and email files by executing code on vulnerable Microsoft Exchange Servers," the FCCB wrote.

Hackers were able to access the servers even after the organizations had patched their systems with updates.

"Reports showed attackers have established backdoors and/or installed malware on systems once gaining access," the FCCB wrote.

Organizations were urged to patch their systems with March 2021 Exchange Server Security Updates and to run the Microsoft Exchange On-Premise mitigation tool.