Japanese Multinationals were attacked by extortion software and were extorted a ransom of US $7 million
JVCKenwood, a Japanese multinational, was recently attacked by the Conti ransomware, claiming to have stolen 1.7TB of data and extorted $7 million in ransom. JVCKenwood is a multinational electronics company headquartered in Japan with 16,956 employees and $2,450 billion in revenue in 2021. The company is known for the JVC, Kenwood and Victor brands, specializing in the manufacture of electronic devices. automotive and domestic audio equipment, health care equipment and radios, professional cameras and embodiments and portable power stations. JVCKenwood said its server at a sales company in Europe crashed on September 22, and that attackers may have accessed data during the attack.
Insider has shared a ransom note for a sample of the CONTTI ransomware used in the JVCKenwood attack. The attacker shared a PDF file during the negotiations that showed he had the scanned passport of a JVCKenwood employee as evidence that the data had been stolen from the company. Since providing evidence of theft, a JVCKenwood representative has not contacted the blackmail ring again, suggesting that the company may not pay the ransom.
Conti is a family of ransomware believed to be managed by TrickBot Threat Executor. Attackers often install ransomware after deploying the TrickBot, BazarBackdoor, and Anchor Trojan on the victim’s network. Conti Group has carried out wide-ranging attacks, including against the city of Tulsa, the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) and numerous healthcare organisations. Recently, a disgruntled affiliate revealed an attack guide for Conti’s ransomware operations, leading the group to become embroiled in a dispute. But on September 22nd, the FBI, CISA and NSA released a joint report that the number of Conti ransomware attacks against US organizations is increasing.
At present, JVCKenwood is conducting a detailed investigation with the relevant departments to confirm that no customer data has been leaked and the details will be published on the company’s website.
Companies in all areas need to keep in mind that cyber threats are likely to disrupt business operations and cause financial damage from shutdowns. Therefore, please spare no effort to strengthen your enterprise cloud backup solutions. How to prevent cybercrime?
First, the IT system needs to be strengthened from the inside. Install antivirus software and endpoint protection services to protect your network from forced access and viruses. You can protect malicious attackers from your network by scanning your device for malware and other viruses. The key is software updates and patches. Endpoint protection means protecting all user devices connected to the corporate network.
- Avert procedural errors
Establish an incident response plan, a process of preparing, detecting, restraining, and restoring from a cyberattack, and rules on how employees use company devices and security systems for conducting transactions. In this way, your business can respond cybercrimes with speed and efficiency.
- Set up strong passwords
Create complicated passwords using letters, special characters, and numbers for different accounts and update them periodically. And align passwords with multifactor authentication to stop unauthorized access. Also, it`s necessary to set a password to the WiFi.
- Check defense measures regularly
Review your cybersecurity polices and have a regular audit of the cyber protection procedures. Cybersecurity polices outlines the guidelines for accessing the internet safely. If your devices are lost, stolen or compromised, update all passwords.
- Create a BCDR plan
A comprehensive BCDR plan, business continuity and disaster recovery, is critical to your company`s resilience and survival. Store data securely, have multiple data backups and conduct disaster recovery drills regularly to protect sensitive data from cybercrimes, data loss, natural disasters and human error. There are many thirdparty data protection vendors to protect critical data from cybercrimes.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery is a opensource vmware backup software for data backup and recovery providing realtime I/O to identify and restrict illegal access.
The first half of 2022 saw constant cyber attacks against all sorts of institutions all over the world. Reports from The University of Maryland shows hackers attack every 39 seconds (or 2,244 times a day on average). Hackers severely disrupted operations of companies, causing serious data breaches and economic damage. That`s why backup matters. And that’s why we recommend doing it now. Take action today so you don’t panic when ransomware shows up.
In conclusion, Vinchin Backup & Recovery allows you to customize the backup strategy for VMware VMs in a flexible way, including the transmission method. No matter you want to protect data via LAN, LAN-Free, or HotAdd, the goal can be easily achieved in a few steps. The 60 days full-featured free trial is currently available, download and get more.