Feds Gave 48 Hours to Patch SharePoint or Pull the Plug

Imagine SharePoint as your company's hyperactive digital filing cabinet, stacked with contracts, client records, strategy docs, and your secret sauce recipes, all accessible to your team. Now, picture a gang of cybercriminals picking the digital lock, slipping in through an undisclosed flaw, and planting ransomware or siphoning off your most valuable data.

That’s exactly the situation the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) lit up with an urgent warning: SharePoint is actively under attack, and time is not on your side. In a move reminiscent of Emergency Directive 25-02 for Exchange, CISA delivered a chilling directive targeting these on-prem SharePoint servers.

How It Started: Pwn2Own and the Zero-Day Fallout

Back in May 2025, the famed Pwn2Own hacking competition in Berlin set the stage. A skilled Viettel researcher walked away with $100,000 for exposing a critical vulnerability that allowed remote code execution on unpatched SharePoint servers.

Fast-forward to July 7, days before Microsoft’s scheduled Patch Tuesday, when those same exploits surfaced in the wild. Thousands of unpatched servers were suddenly exposed. The situation escalated quickly, with over 9,000 vulnerable systems compromised globally. A leak of exploit code (allegedly following Microsoft’s info-sharing with China) only fueled the fire.

Federal Fallout and CISA’s Call to Action

In response, CISA issued a no-nonsense mandate to all federal civilian executive branch (FCEB) agencies: patch immediately, enable the Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI), deploy modern endpoint detection tools, and most critically, take public-facing SharePoint servers offline if they can’t be secured.

Older versions like SharePoint 2013, which reached end-of-life (EOL), were particularly vulnerable and demanded immediate action.

The Cost of Delay: Real-World Attacks

The attacks weren’t just theoretical. At least seven U.S. federal agencies, including Homeland Security, Energy, and Education, suffered breaches. Persistent backdoors were discovered, primed for future ransomware payloads such as Warlock.

Private sector entities also got caught in the crossfire:

• A Texas hospital faced $150,000 in downtime after ransomware encrypted patient files.

• A Midwestern university saw 10,000 student records dumped on the dark web.

These incidents underline the true cost of inaction, not just financially, but in public trust and operational integrity.

Why SharePoint? Why Now?

Legacy on-prem environments like SharePoint 2016 and 2019 are approaching end-of-support in 2026. This makes them juicy targets for nation-state actors and cybercrime gangs alike. With many organizations slow to migrate to cloud or hybrid setups, attackers are exploiting the gap.

At CyberStreams, we specialize in turning this kind of chaos into clarity, locking down your critical infrastructure before threat actors make their move.

Three Immediate Takeaways to Defend Your SharePoint

1. Patch Like a Pro
   Apply Microsoft’s July security patch without delay. Yesterday’s delay becomes tomorrow’s breach.

2. Deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF)
   This isn’t your run-of-the-mill firewall. A WAF protects your web-facing assets like SharePoint, from the types of attacks currently in the wild.

3. Monitor Security 24/7
   Today’s attackers aren’t just noisy ransomware gangs, they’re stealthy, persistent, and business-savvy. Continuous monitoring is your silent guard dog.

Conclusion: This Is Your 48-Hour Warning

CISA’s 48-hour directive isn’t just a recommendation, it’s a red alert. Whether you’re in the federal space or a private organization relying on on-prem SharePoint, the message is clear: patch it, protect it, or pull it offline.

The cyber battlefield is evolving. Legacy tools and delayed updates are open invitations for attacks. Organizations that want to stay ahead must act decisively and strategically.

Let this be your wake-up call, not your post-breach postmortem.

At CyberStreams, we’re here to help you lock your digital doors before the attackers find them wide open.