Hackers attacked a Miami-based IT management company, Kaseya, with ransomware, demanding the sum of $70 million in bitcoin to restore access.
The attack affected businesses that patronize Kaseya for its IT services – it serves 40,000 businesses.
Following the ransomware attack, Kaseya urged customers to take their servers offline, with an unspecified time as to when they would be restored online.
“We have been advised by our outside experts, that customers who experienced ransomware and receive communication from the attackers should not click on any links — they may be weaponized.”
However, the IT firm disclosed that restoration would be gradual, as it would put servers back online in the UK, Europe, Asia at midnight, while it would restore those in North America on Monday afternoon.
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Speaking on the Good Morning America show, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kaseya, Fred Voccola, said that the firm had identified the “how” of the attack.
Voccola said, “We’re actually 100% confident that we know how it happened, and we’ve remediated it.”
This is one of a series of ransomware attacks of this magnitude. A cybersecurity professor at the University of Oxford, Ciaran Martin, said, “It’s probably the biggest ransomware attack of all time.”
Prior to this attack, a gas pipeline, and a major meat processing company – that was made to pay $11 million – had received ransomware.
Connected to the hack is a group REvil, also known as Sodinokibi believed to be based in Russia.
