The number of users attacked via Microsoft Office vulnerabilities in the Middle East increased

The number of users attacked via Microsoft Office vulnerabilities in the Middle East increased

MS Office vulnerabilities , , and were used by criminals most often during the second quarter, being exploited to attack more than 551,000 users in total. These attempts were countered by Kaspersky’s solutions; if the attackers had succeeded, they would have got control over victims’ computers to view, change, or delete data without their knowledge through remote execution of malicious code. In the Middle East, the number of users attacked through these vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Office suite over the last quarter remained relatively stable increasing by 1%, however, the prominent upward trend in the number of such attacks at the global level keeps security operations centers on alert. Kuwait saw a 20% increase in the number of attacked users in Q2 compared to Q1. In Oman, there was a 14% increase. In Saudi Arabia, the increase was 3%, in Bahrain – also 3%. In Qatar, the number of users attacked grew by 1%, and in the United Arab Emirates the number decreased by 1%. Kaspersky experts found that exploits for the vulnerability, designated , were used to attack almost 5,000 people globally in Q2 2022, which is eight times more than during Q1 2022. The CVE-2021-40444 is in MSHTML,