A ransomware attack paralyzed the networks of at least 200 US companies on Friday, said a cybersecurity researcher whose company was responding to the incident.
The REvil gang, a major Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate, appears to be behind the attack, said John Hammond of the security firm Huntress Labs Inc.
He said the criminals targeted a software supplier called Kaseya, using its network management package as a conduit to spread the ransomware through cloud service providers.
Other researchers agreed with Hammond’s assessment.
“Kaseya handles large enterprise all the way to small businesses globally, so ultimately, [this] has the potential to spread to any size or scale business,” Hammond said in a direct message on Twitter. “This is a colossal and devastating supply chain attack.”
Such cyberattacks typically infiltrate widely used software and spread malware as it automatically updates.
It was not immediately clear how many Kaseya customers might be affected or who they might be.
Kaseya urged customers in a statement on its Web site to immediately shut down servers running the affected software.
It said the attack was limited to a “small number” of its customers.
Brett Callow, a ransomware expert at cybersecurity firm Emsisoft Ltd, said he was unaware of any previous ransomware supply-chain attack on this scale.
There have been others, but they were fairly minor, he said.
“This is SolarWinds with ransomware,” he said.
He was referring to a Russian cyberespionage hacking campaign discovered in December last year that spread by infecting network management software to infiltrate US federal agencies and scores of companies.
Cybersecurity researcher Jake Williams, president of Rendition Infosec, said he was already working with six companies hit by the ransomware.
It is no accident that this happened before the US national holiday Fourth of July weekend, when IT staffing is generally thin, he added.
“There’s zero doubt in my mind that the timing here was intentional,” he said.
Hammond said he was aware of four managed-services providers — companies that host IT infrastructure for multiple customers — being hit by the ransomware, which encrypts networks until the victims pay off attackers.
He said thousand of computers were hit.
“We currently have three Huntress partners who are impacted with roughly 200 businesses that have been encrypted,” Hammond said.
Hammond wrote on Twitter: “Based on everything we are seeing right now, we strongly believe this [is] REvil/Sodinikibi.”
The FBI linked the same ransomware provider to a May attack on JBS SA, a major global meat processor.
The White House and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
CRITICAL MOVE: TSMC’s plan to invest another US$100 billion in US chipmaking would boost Taiwan’s competitive edge in the global market, the premier said The government would ensure that the most advanced chipmaking technology stays in Taiwan while assisting Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in investing overseas, the Presidential Office said yesterday. The statement follows a joint announcement by the world’s largest contract chipmaker and US President Donald Trump on Monday that TSMC would invest an additional US$100 billion over the next four years to expand its semiconductor manufacturing operations in the US, which would include construction of three new chip fabrication plants, two advanced packaging facilities, and a research and development center. The government knew about the deal in advance and would assist, Presidential
‘DANGEROUS GAME’: Legislative Yuan budget cuts have already become a point of discussion for Democrats and Republicans in Washington, Elbridge Colby said Taiwan’s fall to China “would be a disaster for American interests” and Taipei must raise defense spending to deter Beijing, US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead Pentagon policy, Elbridge Colby, said on Tuesday during his US Senate confirmation hearing. The nominee for US undersecretary of defense for policy told the Armed Services Committee that Washington needs to motivate Taiwan to avoid a conflict with China and that he is “profoundly disturbed” about its perceived reluctance to raise defense spending closer to 10 percent of GDP. Colby, a China hawk who also served in the Pentagon in Trump’s first team,
SEPARATE: The MAC rebutted Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is China’s province, asserting that UN Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor grants the PRC authority over it The “status quo” of democratic Taiwan and autocratic China not belonging to each other has long been recognized by the international community, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday in its rebuttal of Beijing’s claim that Taiwan can only be represented in the UN as “Taiwan, Province of China.” Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday at a news conference of the third session at the 14th National People’s Congress said that Taiwan can only be referred to as “Taiwan, Province of China” at the UN. Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, which is not only history but
INVESTMENT WATCH: The US activity would not affect the firm’s investment in Taiwan, where 11 production lines would likely be completed this year, C.C. Wei said Investments by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in the US should not be a cause for concern, but rather seen as the moment that the company and Taiwan stepped into the global spotlight, President William Lai (賴清德) told a news conference at the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday alongside TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家). Wei and US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday announced plans to invest US$100 billion in the US to build three advanced foundries, two packaging plants, and a research and development center, after Trump threatened to slap tariffs on chips made
RSS