Over 200 US businesses hit by ransomware attacks after breach at Florida IT firm: Report

At least 200 businesses in the United States “have been encrypted”, according to Cybersecurity firm Huntress Labs, which has been probing into a recent attack on Kaseya. On July 2, a computing network management tool by the Florida based IT Firm was targeted into a fresh series of cyber-attacks. Kaseya describes itself as a leading provider of IT and security management services to small- and medium-sized businesses, meaning an attack would make them targets going into the Independence Day holiday weekend in the United States.

Investigation underway

Meanwhile, Huntress Labs concluded that it was a ransomware attack, which typically involves locking away data in systems using encryption. In such cases, companies have to pay again to gain access to it. At present, Huntress Labs along with employees from Kesaya are investigating to find the “root cause” of the attack.

"We are in the process of investigating the root cause of the incident with an abundance of caution but we recommend that you immediately shut down your VSA server until you receive further notice from us," Kaseya said in a message shared on social media. 

"It's critical that you do this immediately because one of the first things the attacker does is shut off administrative access to the VSA," it said further. VSA is the company's flagship offering, designed to let companies manage networks of computers and printers from a single point.

In a news interview recently, FBI Director Christopher Wray compared the ransomware threats as similar to security challenges posed by the largest crime scenes in FBI history, the 9/11 terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of 3,000 Americans and overseas nationals. Highlighting the potential threat posed by cyberterrorism that had partaken in the attacks of 9/11—which the FBI probed under the code name “PENTTBOM,” Wray told WSJ,  “There are a lot of parallels, there’s a lot of importance, and a lot of focus by us on disruption and prevention,” as he pointed to the Russian hackers. There are at least 100 different malicious software variants that exist, every single one was responsible for multiple ransomware attacks in the US, Wray said in a report. 

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