The Week in Breach News: 11/24/21 – 11/30/21

Risk to Business: 1.917= Severe

Researchers discovered a non-password-protected database that contained 92 million records belonging to the digital marketing firm Cronin last week. The exposed server was named “Cronin-Main” and many of the records contained references to Cronin. Exposed client records include internal logging of client advertisement campaigns, keywords, Google analytics data, session IDs, Client IDs, device data and other identifying information. Sales data was also exposed in a “Master Mailing List” with direct physical names, addresses, Salesforce IDs, phone numbers, and references to where the leads came from for customers and prospects. Internal Cronin employee usernames, emails, and hashed passwords and some unspecified PII and financial data were also exposed.

Risk to Business: 1.702=Severe

Maryland-based Supernus Pharmaceuticals fell prey to a ransomware attack that resulted in a large amount of data being exfiltrated from its networks in mid-November. The Hive ransomware group claimed responsibility for the attack over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The group claims to have breached Supernus Pharmaceuticals’ network on November 14 and exfiltrated a total of 1,268,906 files, totaling 1.5 terabytes of data. Supernus Pharmaceuticals says it did not plan to pay a ransom. In a statement, Supernus Pharmaceuticals also disclosed that it did not experience a significant impact on its business, they were quickly able to restore lost data and the company has enacted stronger security measures.  

Risk to Business: 2.728=Moderate

Butler County Community College in Pennsylvania was forced to suspend classes for at least two days in the wake of a ransomware attack that has crippled the college’s systems. The college says it is working to restore databases, hard drives, servers and other devices. In a release, the college also announced the cancellation of all remote and online credit classes as it works to restore data, servers and other systems affected by the attack. Noncredit courses are canceled as well for November 29 and 30. The college will not provide services on its main campus or at its additional locations on those days. The incident is under investigation and the college is being assisted in recovery by a local cybersecurity firm.  

Risk to Business: 2.109= Severe

Researchers uncovered a misconfigured Amazon Web Services S3 bucket containing 10 GB worth of data that belonged to Wi-Fi software services company WSpot. The bucket was discovered on Sep 2nd, and WSpot was notified on Sep 7th, after which the company was able to secure it immediately. The company stated that they are in the process of notifying legal authorities including the National Data Protection Authority regarding the incident. WSpot, estimated that 5% of its customer base was impacted by this leak. 

Individual Risk 2.811= Severe

 An estimated 226,000 files were exposed including the personal details of at least 2.5 million users who connected to WSpot’s client’s public Wi-Fi networks. 

Risk to Business: 1.512= Severe

This week’s most bizarre breach saga belongs to BTC-Alpha. The UK-based cryptocurrency exchange was hit with a ransomware attack in early November. The Lockbit ransomware group claimed responsibility and posted a threat to its leak site to expose BTC-Alpha’s data if a ransom was not paid by December 1. Here’s where it gets strange. Alpha founder and CEO Vitalii Bodnar alleged the attack was the work of a competing cryptocurrency firm in a press release on the same day that Lockbit’s announcement was made. The release goes on to state that a rival was launching a cryptocurrency exchange on the same day as the attack and may be involved in the incident. The full text of the release is available here: https://www.prleap.com/pr/282919/vitaliy-bodnar-founder-of-btc-alpha-comments-on-the-pressure-and-threats The company disclosed that although hashed passwords were compromised, users’ balances were not impacted, and the company and its users lost no money. The company also advised users to avoid password reuse, update or reinstall their apps, and employ MFA. The odd incident is under investigation.  

Risk to Business: 1.595 = Extreme

IKEA is battling a nasty phishing attack on its employee email accounts that is using reply chains to try to trick employees. A reply-chain email attack is a type of spoofing in which the bad guys steal legitimate corporate email messages and send links to malicious documents to the chain as a reply. The messages seem legit and can be hard to catch. Malicious messages are being sent from inside the main IKEA organization as well as from other compromised IKEA organizations and business partners. The fight is ongoing and no direct cause has been announced, although analysts are saying that signs point to a Microsoft Exchange on-premises server compromise. 

Risk to Business: 1.595 = Extreme

Singapore-based shipping giant Swire Pacific Offshore has announced a data breach after it fell victim to a possible ransomware attack. The company’s press release stated that unauthorized access had resulted in the loss of some confidential proprietary commercial information and some personal data. No further specifics were given about the type or amount of data stolen. The statement went on to note that appropriate authorities have been notified. Singapore has mandatory data breach notification laws that require organizations to report incidents like this to the government. The company also announced that it is working with data security experts to investigate the incident and implement stricter security measures.