Cyber Security: Massive Attack: 200+ US Organizations Hacked

More than 200 US businesses have been hit by a massive ransomware attack, according to researchers at cyber security software firm Huntress Labs. They report that cyber criminals are demanding $50,000 from smaller companies and $5 million from larger ones.

In a replica of the devastating SolarWinds attack, the hack targeted Florida-based IT company Kaseya before spreading through corporate networks that use its software.

With more than 40,000 organisations use Kaseya products, the company says, which includes VSA and other IT tools. The breach was timed to happen as companies across the US were clocking off for the long Independence Day weekend on 2nd July. Kaseya’s website says it has a presence in over 10 countries and more than 10,000 customers and are in the process of investigating the root cause of this incident.

In recent statement, the CEO Kaseya confirmed that the company’s Incident Response team realised they were being attacked and they closed-down their SaaS servers as a precautionary measure, despite not having received any reports of compromise from any SaaS or hosted customers. “..we immediately notified our on-premises customers via email, in-product notices, and phone to shut down their VSA servers to prevent them from being compromised. We then followed our established incident response process to determine the scope of the incident and the extent that our customers were affected.”

Kaseya on alert to keep customers informed and to make any changes necessary to move forward. “Luckily this is July 4 holiday, which means a lot of customers are offline anyway…We are hoping this is all resolved in the next 48 hours.” Huntress Labs has clients who were affected by the attack, says it believes Russian-speaking hacking group REvil is behind the ransomware attack – the same group that the FBI said was responsible for other recent large scale attacks.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), said that it is taking action to understand and address the recent supply-chain ransomware attack against Kaseya VSA and the multiple managed service providers (MSPs) that employ VSA software.

Kaseya said one of its applications that runs corporate servers, desktop computers and network devices might have been compromised in the attack. The company said it was urging customers that use its VSA tool to immediately shut down their servers.

Kaseya say that they took swift actions to protect their customers:

Immediately shut down our SaaS servers as a precautionary measure, even though we had not received any reports of compromise from any SaaS or hosted customers.

Immediately notified our on-premises customers via email, in-product notices, and phone to shut down their VSA servers to prevent them from being compromised.

Followed an established incident response process to determine the scope of the incident and the extent that our customers were affected.

Engaged our internal incident response team and leading industry experts in forensic investigations to help us determine the root cause of the issue.

Notified law enforcement and government cybersecurity agencies, including the FBI and CISA.

Kaseya say that early indicators suggest that only a very small number of on-premises customers were affected, they took a conservative approach in shutting down the SaaS servers to ensure we protected our more than 36,000 customers to the best of our ability. They also say that they have received positive feedback from their customers about their rapid and proactive response.