Kaseya VSA ransomware attack (2021)
This page is under construction.
Date | The attack took place on 2nd July 2021.[1] |
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Suspected actor | REvil (i.e., Ransomware Evil[2]) group, which is also known as Sodinokibi.[3] It is Russian speaking and Russian based Ransomware as-a-service (RaaS) gang.
Moreover, according to the Lawfare „It really is the McDonald's of the criminal world with a very high profile“.[4] |
Target | Kesaya, a global IT infrastructure provider. [4] |
Target systems | In general, target systems were Virtual System Administrator (VSA) software. The reason why Kesaya VSA was an attractive target is that this software is used by managed service providers (MSP)[4]. In concrete, we are speaking about thousands of small businesses facing the attack. [5] |
Method | At the first sight, the attack was detected as a supply chain attack. This idea was supported by US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and FBI. [6] Nevertheless, subsequently was raised the question, if the Kesaya was not facing a more conventional exploit attack targeting Kaseya VSA.[7] [4] The reason why there were doubts was the fact that it was not clear if the aimed upstream (VSA) was targeted for purpose of scaling downstream exploitation or not. [8] Nevertheless, the outcome of the discussion is, that it was a supply chain attack. |
Purpose | Primarily causing economic loss to Kesaya and its customers. [9] REvil in a post on their leak site announced that the universal decrypt key is worth $70 million in BTC. This amount was the highest ransom demand to date.[10] |
Result | According to Reuters between 800 and 1500 Businesses worldwide were affected by the attack. [11] One of the victims is also the Swedish chain of supermarkets Coop, which was forced to close over more than half of its stores in Sweden. [12]Moreover the ransomware attack also hit 11 schools oi New Zelaand.[13] |
Aftermath | On 23 July, Kaseya announced it had received a universal decryptor tool for the REvil-encrypted files from an unnamed „trusted third party“ and was helping victims restore their files.[14]
According to the circumstances interesting is the fact, that it was used a universal decryptor key. This situation was explained by REvil on 9 September in an illicit Russian-language forum as “One of our coders misclicked and generated a universal key, and issued the universal decryptor key along with a bunch of keys for one machine. That’s how we sh*t ourselves,”[15] |
Analysed in | Scenario 14: Ransomware campaign |
Collected by: Anna Blechová
- ↑ RBS, The Kaseya Attack: Everything to Know, Risk Based Security (12 July 2021)
- ↑ Lucian Constantin, REvil ransomware explained: A widespread extortion operation, CSO Online (17 November 2020)
- ↑ Cahrlie Osborn, Updated Kaseya ransomware attack FAQ:What we know now, ZDNet, (23 July 2021)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Nicolas Weaver, What Happened in the Kesaya VSA Incident?, Lawfare ( 4 July 2021)
- ↑ Davey Winder, $70 Million Demanded As REvil Ransomware Attackers Claim 1 Million Systems Hit, Forbes (5 July 2021)
- ↑ CISA-FBI Guidance for MSPs and their Customers Affected by the Kaseya VSA Supply-Chain Ransomware Attack (4 July 2021)
- ↑ RBS, Is the Kaseya Hack Actually a Supply Chain Attack?, Risk Based Security (14 July 2021)
- ↑ Matt Howard, Kaseya Ransomware: a Software Supply Chain Attack or Not?, sonatype (6 July 2021)
- ↑ Alex Marquardt, Ransomware group demands $70 million for Kaseya attack, CNN (5 July 2021)
- ↑ Ionut Ilascu, REvil ransomware asks $70 million to decrypt all Kaseya attack victims, BleepingComputer (5 July 2021)
- ↑ Raphael Satter, Up to 1,500 businesses affected by ransomware attack, U.S. firm’s CEO says, Reuters ( 6 July 2021)
- ↑ Joe Tidy, Swedish Coop supermarkets shut due to US ransomware cyber-attack, BBC (3 July 2021)
- ↑ Worldwide ransomware attack: St Peter’s College and 10 other schools hit by US cyber attack, NZHerald (4 July 2021)
- ↑ Joe Tidy, Ransomware key to unlock customer data from REvil attack, BBC (23 July 2021)
- ↑ Michael Novinson, REvil: We Accidentally Leaked Kaseya Universal Decryptor Key, CRN (10 September 2021)