Ransomware has been a major cybersecurity threat to traditional IT environments for years. Until recently, cloud resources were not frequently attacked by this particular kind of malicious software. In large part, this was due to the challenges of attacking a cloud infrastructure.

The Log4j security vulnerability was discovered on December 9, 2021, by Chen Zhaojun of the Alibaba Cloud Security Team. The formal designation of the vulnerability is CVE-2021-44228 or Log4Shell. It is a publicly available and high-severity security flaw that impacts the core functionality of the widely used Apache Log4j logging library. This includes many cloud environments across the public vendor spectrum.

Malware is not a new phenomenon in the computing world. Viruses, trojans, and other forms of malicious software have been around at least since personal computers started popping up on users’ desks. It’s the reason that antivirus software is recommended for all systems and why you should never open a suspicious file or email attachment. Doing so risks infection by damaging software hidden in the downloaded files.