This Monday, a large British water supplier was hacked by the Clop collective. However, not everything went as planned for him. Indeed, when demanding the ransom from its target, the group chose the wrong company and went to a competitor, who did not suffer any attack.
It is no longer uncommon for malicious hackers to attack public infrastructures to deploy their malware. The calculation is simple: by attacking this type of company, it is potentially several million people who are impacted, thus increasing the pressure on their leaders to push them to pay the ransom. This is how some do not hesitate to attack hospitals, or even entire electricity networks.
While the United Kingdom is undergoing an unprecedented heat wave, the Clop collective has decided to attack a local water supplier. With 15 million inhabitants supplied by its services, Thames Water is the largest supplier in the country. According to his own words, Clop would have recovered 5 TB of personal data from the company’s servers, and demanded a ransom in return. Problem: this is not the right company.
They hack one company and demand ransom from another
Indeed, shortly after the revelation of the attack by Clop, Thames Water denied having been the victim of ransomware. Its data is intact and its activity has been following its normal course since Monday. On the other hand, South Staffordshire Water, another water supplier in the region which supplies 1.6 million people, has announced that it has been the victim of a cyberattack.
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The error can also be seen in the files published by Clop shortly after the failure of the negotiations. In the latter are indeed addresses of the names and email addresses of employees working for South Staffordshire Water, and not Thames Water. Finally, the collective rectified its error today by indicating on its site that its target is indeed South Staffordshire Water.
Anyway, the company assures that its distribution network was not impacted by the attack, and that the inhabitants do not have to worry about a possible shortage of water. “This is due to the robust systems and controls over water supply and water quality that we have in place at all times, as well as the quick work of our teams to respond to this incident and implement the additional measures we have put in place as a precaution”explained this one.
Source: Bleeping Computer