23 January 21, 10:19
Quote:On the heels of a ransomware attack against the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), attackers have now reportedly published more than 4,000 files stolen from the agency – including contracts and strategy documents.
After hitting SEPA on Christmas Eve with the attack, cybercriminals encrypted 1.2GB of information. The attack has affected SEPA’s email systems, which remain offline as of Thursday, according to the agency. However, SEPA, which Scotland’s environmental regulator, stressed on Thursday that it will not “engage” with the cybercriminals.
“We’ve been clear that we won’t use public finance to pay serious and organized criminals intent on disrupting public services and extorting public funds,” said SEPA chief executive Terry A’Hearn in a statement.
The agency is charged with protecting Scotland’s environment via national flood forecasting, flood warnings and more. As such, the stolen data included various information related to environmental businesses – including publicly-available regulated site permits, authorizations and enforcement notices, as well as data related to SEPA corporate plans, priorities and change programs. Other compromised data was related to publicly available procurement awards and commercial work with SEPA’s international partners. Also stolen was the personal data of SEPA’s staff.
Despite these broad categories, SEPA said it still does not know – and may never know – the full details of all files stolen. Some of the compromised information was already publicly available, while other data was not, it confirmed.
“Working with cyber security experts, a dedicated team has been established to identify the detail of business or partner information loss and, where identified, direct contact will be made as quickly as possible with affected organizations,” according to SEPA.
Read more: https://threatpost.com/attackers-publish...es/163254/