Blackbaud, a Cloud based Software Services provider, announced last week that it suffered a ransomware attack on its hosting services in May this year and was left with no other choice rather than to pay a ransom to hackers to free up the encrypted data.
As per the details available to the media resources, a noted hacking group launched a file encrypting malware attack on the data center of Blackbaud encrypting almost all the files and stealing a portion of data to be published on dark web.
Since the hackers were threatening to publish the stolen data online; the officials of the South Carolina based service provider had to entertain their demands by paying a ransom as protecting the customer’s data was their top priority.
A probe launched by the Cloud services provider later revealed that their threat monitoring solutions worked well in blocking down the threat. However, the hackers somehow accessed a small portion of data and steal it to sell it on dark web later, if in case their negotiations with the victim over the ransom failed.
Note- Unofficial sources say that the officials of Blackbaud could have paid $350,000 to decrypt the database and some extra amount to delete the stolen files from the database of the hackers. But the information about the hacking group that involved in the incident is being kept under wraps for reasons best known to the cloud computing services provider.
Note- As per the July 23rd update provided by Blackbaud, data related to six universities could have been stolen in the cyber attack and that includes Ambrose University of Canada and Rhode Island Design School in USA along with the regular Oxford Brookes University, Loughborough University, University of London, University of Leeds, University of Reading, the University of York and some research of students and faculty.
