1.) A ransomware attack on the websites of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh power utilities is said to have forced the related officials to pull their respective websites offline. The restoration of the data is going on full swing and most of the systems might get restored by the day end of Friday.
News is out that the cybercrime police officials have been pressed into service to investigate the incident. However, sources reporting to Cybersecurity Insiders say that attackers are demanding Rs 30 crore as a ransom to free up the data from encryption of Robinhood Ransomware.
Note- A ransomware is a kind of malware which infects databases and encrypts data until a ransom is paid.
Prima Facie conducted by the cyber crime wing of the Hyderabad Police discloses that the malicious software entered the network of the power distribution company via a phishing email.
Due to some governance reasons the computer systems of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are inter-linked and so the computer utilities of Andhra Pradesh also came under the attack.
Websites of Andhra Pradesh Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (APSPDCL) and Andhra Pradesh Eastern Power Distribution Company Limited (APEPDCL) are reported to be deeply impacted.
2.) In other news related to a ransomware attack, Austrian Construction Group Porr has officially announced that it has detected a cyber attack on its telephone and email lines leading to disruption.
Highly placed sources from PORR said that the construction firm has become a victim of a malware attack which encrypts the database. But no data was compromised or leaked in the incident.
3.) Coming to the third incident, Germany based IT services provider Citycomp has disclosed that a recent cyber attack on its database has put data related to several big companies at risk which includes Airbus, Toshiba, Volkswagen, and Oracle.
No customer data was compromised in the incident and the company chose not to bow down to the ransom demands. Instead, it chose to use backups to restore the lost data.
