A ransomware attack on a US IT company potentially targeted 1,000 businesses, researchers said on Saturday, with one of Sweden’s biggest supermarket chains revealing it had to temporarily close about 800 stores after losing access to its checkouts.
Kaseya on Friday evening said that it had limited the attack to “a very small percentage of our customers” who use its signature VSA software — “currently estimated at fewer than 40 worldwide.”
However, cybersecurity firm Huntress Labs said in a Reddit forum that it was working with partners targeted in the attack, and that the software was manipulated “to encrypt more than 1,000 companies.”
Russian-based hackers have been blamed for a string of ransomware attacks, and US President Joe Biden has raised the threat in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Biden on Saturday ordered a full investigation, while adding that “the initial thinking was it was not the Russian government, but we’re not sure yet.”
Brett Callow, an analyst for cybersecurity company Emsisoft, said that it remained unknown how many companies were affected and that the scale of attack could be “without precedent.”
Ransomware attacks typically involve locking away data in systems using encryption, making companies pay to regain access.
Kaseya describes itself as a leading provider of IT and security management services to small and medium-sized businesses.
VSA, the company’s flagship offering, is designed to let companies manage networks of computers and printers from a single point.
“One of our subcontractors was hit by a digital attack, and that’s why our checkouts aren’t working any more,” Coop Sweden, which accounts for about 20 percent of the country’s supermarket sector, said in a statement.
“We regret the situation and will do all we can to reopen swiftly,” the cooperative added.
Coop Sweden did not name the subcontractor or reveal the hacking method used against it.
However, the Swedish subsidiary of the Visma software group said the problem was linked to the Kaseya attack.
Kaseya became aware of a possible incident with VSA at midday on Friday on the US east coast and “immediately shut down” its servers as a “precautionary measure,” it said.
It also “notified our on-premises customers via email, in-product notes, and phone to shut down their VSA servers to prevent them from being compromised.”
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“We believe that we have identified the source of the vulnerability and are preparing a patch to mitigate it,” the company said in a statement.
According to the New Zealand government’s Computer Emergency Response Team, the attackers were from a hacking group known as REvil.
REvil was also, according to the FBI, behind last month’s attack on JBS, one of the world’s biggest meat processors, which ended with the Brazil-based company paying bitcoin worth US$11 million to the hackers.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said that it was “taking action to understand and address the recent supply-chain ransomware attack” against Kaseya VSA and the service providers using its software.
“This is one of the largest, most widespread ransomware attacks I’ve seen in my career,” said Alfred Saikali of law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon.
“I have never seen this many companies hire us in a single day for the same incident. As a general rule, you want to avoid paying the ransom at all costs,” he said.
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