Field alerted to new ransomware threat, latest Russian cyber tactics

The FBI today released an alert on the ransomware variant Darkside, which this month infected a critical infrastructure company in the United States. The ransomware-as-a-service variant has affected various sectors since October 2020, including health care.
 
“Today the FBI confirmed that the Darkside ransomware is responsible for the compromise of the Colonial Pipeline networks,” said John Riggi, AHA senior advisor for cybersecurity and risk. “The agency continues to work with the victim and government partners on the investigation. This is one of the most significant cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure. Although the Darkside group claims they will not directly target hospitals, all should be prepared for either intentional targeting by Darkside or the resulting impact and collateral damage from a Darkside ransomware attack on a business associate.”  
 
On Friday, the British National Cyber Security Centre and U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, FBI and National Security Agency released a joint advisory with additional details on the latest cyber tactics associated with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, to which recent cyberattacks targeting SolarWinds software and COVID-19 vaccine developers were attributed.
 
For more information on this or other cyber and risk issues, contact Riggi at jriggi@aha.org.