Indian government issues ‘high severity’ warning for Microsoft Teams users, personal data of users at risk

Microsoft Team (MS Teams) is one of the most popular business communication platforms and the Indian government has issued a ‘high risk’ warning for its users. MS Teams is used by millions of users daily communication, meetings and schedules. Most of the professionals who rely on MS Teams, often have the app open in the background and the app is usually granted access to the camera, files, microphone, location and other sensitive information. Microsoft rolls out updates for Teams app from time to time to keep the users safe from malwares and also to protect data. Although tech companies recommend installing the updates immediately after the release, a few users avoid it due to ease of use or lack of space. Most of the time these users are unaffected but as per a latest warning by the Indian government, MS Teams users are under high risk of attack.

As per Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) under the IT Ministry, multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Microsoft Teams which could be exploited by a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the targeted system.

These vulnerabilities could be exploited by a remote attacker to persuade the victim into joining a Teams meeting which would enable them to perform remote code execution in the context of the victim user. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code, gain access to the information and cause denial of service conditions on the targeted system. To avoid any swindling, MS Teams users should apply appropriate updates.