Prolific ransomware gang takes credit score for Seiko knowledge breach

One of many world’s most outstanding ransomware gangs has taken credit score for a cyberattack on Japanese watchmaker Seiko.

The corporate, which reported revenues of greater than $1.7 billion this fiscal 12 months from promoting luxurious watches, clocks and extra, confirmed that it was coping with an information breach in an announcement on August 10.

It found a potential knowledge breach on July 28 and employed cybersecurity specialists to look at the scenario on August 2. The investigators discovered unauthorized entry to not less than one in every of their servers.

On Monday, the AlphV/Black Cat ransomware gang took credit for the assault, sharing screenshots of the stolen knowledge that included spreadsheets and displays.

#Japan ALPHV, aka Blackcat, ransomware group has introduced Seiko Group Company on the sufferer record

“Seiko manufactures and sells watches, clocks, digital units, semiconductors, and optical merchandise.”#DarkWeb #ransomware pic.twitter.com/Pu7efazibZ

— Each day Darkish Net (@DailyDarkWeb) August 21, 2023

The gang continues to be one of the vital prolific ransomware operations, launching dozens of high-profile assaults in 2023 together with incidents involving cosmetics big Estée Lauder, Reddit, authorized doc platform Casepoint and cost processing big NCR.

Many specialists consider the hackers related to the ransomware gang have been additionally behind the Darkside ransomware group, which was answerable for the cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline.

In its assertion, Seiko mentioned it’s “fairly sure that there was a breach and that some info saved by our Firm and/or our Group firms might have been compromised.”

“Presently, we’re verifying the precise nature of the knowledge that was saved on the impacted servers. As quickly as our ongoing investigation produces extra particular outcomes, we are going to report this instantly,” the corporate mentioned.

The corporate urged any prospects or companions to contact them in the event that they obtain suspicious messages coming from their e-mail addresses and to “take excessive precautions to forestall your individual methods from hurt.”

Mihoko Matsubara, chief cybersecurity strategist at expertise firm NTT, informed Recorded Future Information that organizations in Japan are going through an growing variety of ransomware assaults.

Main Japanese firms like pharmaceutical agency Eisai and zipper producer YKK have handled ransomware incidents within the final three months.

Matsubara famous that final month’s assault on the Port of Nagoya — one of many nation’s largest ports — has highlighted the cascading risks of ransomware incidents.

“One of many classes we realized from the Colonial Pipeline incident and the assault on the port of Nagoya final month is that relying on what sector the ransomware assault is hitting, it’s going to have a domino impact on not just one group but additionally a number of sectors,” she mentioned.