The cybercrime gang behind the PYSA ransomware (it stands for “Protect Your System Amigo” and is also known as Mespinoza) has released files which they claim to have stolen from the London borough council of Hackney during an attack some months ago.
As previously reported, Hackney Council acknowledged that it had been hit by a “serious cyber attack” in early October 2020, which left it unable to make housing benefit payments to the needy, and caused house purchases to fall through.
At the time of writing, months after the initial attack, Hackney Council continues to advise that it is unable to provide all of its normal services.
Sign up to our newsletterSecurity news, advice, and tips.
Hackney Council has been notably tight-lipped about the precise nature of the “serious cyber attack”.
Last October, I speculated that ransomware was at the heart of the attack, and sensitive data could have been exfiltrated by criminals:
“And if it is ransomware, is it one of the more unpleasant strains of ransomware attack where malicious hackers don’t just lock up your files and demand a ransom, but have also exfiltrated data from the network and are threatening to release it to the wider world if a sizeable ransom is not paid.”
Well, what do you know… look what has been published on PYSA’s site on the dark web, where it lists its victims – gigabytes of data files ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
