Scotland's environmental watchdog has confirmed it is dealing with an "ongoing ransomware attack" likely masterminded by international "serious and organised" criminals during the last week of 2020.
"On Christmas Eve, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) confirmed that it was responding to a significant cyber-attack affecting its contact centre, internal systems, processes and internal communications," it revealed.
Efforts to respond to the assault continue at the agency, which probes allegations of land, water and air pollution, and the "matter is subject to a live criminal investigation and the duty of confidence is embedded in law," it said.
Some "internal systems and external data products" remain offline as the investigation proceeds but the priority regulatory, monitoring, flood forecasting and warning services "are adapting and continue to operate," SEPA added.
Staff schedules, some specialist reporting tools, systems and database are down and out, potentially for a "protracted period". Contact centres and web help services are being gradually restored, and regulatory teams are focusing on the most important workloads.
Certain systems have been "isolated" but SEPA warned that security experts working with the Scottish government, Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre "confirm we remain subject to an ongoing ransomware attack likely to be by international serious and organised cyber-crime groups intent on disrupting public services and extorting public funds."
It is now clear that "recovery may take a significant period" and a "number of SEPA systems will remain badly affected for some time, with new systems required".
So what's been pinched? Security specialists going over the attack and its impact have so far identified a loss of around 1.2GB worth of data, an indication that " ..
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