Tuesday, July 27, 2021
After a hacker attack on an IT company
Kaseya: No ransom paid for keys
The IT service provider Kaseya, who was attacked by hackers, has mysteriously obtained a decryption program to gain access to its customers’ computers. This causes speculation as to whether the company could have paid the million-dollar ransom. Kaseya rejects this – but fails to provide an explanation.
The IT service provider Kaseya, recently hit by a hacker attack, has rejected speculation that it may have paid a ransom for the master key to unlock its customers’ computers. No money had gone to the attackers either directly or through others, stressed Kaseya in a communication.
At the beginning of July, a group of hackers encrypted computers at dozen of the company’s customers via a vulnerability in the software. Last week, Kaseya announced that they had received a master key that could be used to unlock the blocked computers.
The hackers had previously demanded $ 70 million for such a decryption tool. Since Kaseya did not provide any information about the origin of his master key, there was also some speculation that the company could have bought it from the hackers.
However, the US company has now emphasized that it had decided not to negotiate with the attackers. The origin of the master key remained unclear. However, Kaseya assured that 100 percent of the files encrypted during the attack could be saved.
Since many of the affected Kaseya customers are themselves IT service providers for others, the impact of the attack reached as far as Sweden, where the supermarket chain Coop was unable to open hundreds of stores due to malfunctioning checkout systems.
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