Colonial Pipeline paid the Darkside ransomware gang nearly $5 million Friday despite publicly saying they wouldn’t pay a ransom to resume operations, according to Bloomberg.
The Alpharetta, Ga.-based pipeline giant paid the ransom in untraceable cryptocurrency within hours of the initial attack, two people familiar with the transaction told Bloomberg. Once Darkside received the payment, Bloomberg said they provided Colonial with a decrypting tool to restore its computer network.
However, Darkside’s decryption tool was so slow that Colonial continued using its own backups to help restore the system, a source familiar with the company’s efforts told Bloomberg. Colonial declined to comment to Bloomberg, and didn’t immediately respond to a CRN request for comment.
https://www.crn.com/news/security/co...-attack-report
The Alpharetta, Ga.-based pipeline giant paid the ransom in untraceable cryptocurrency within hours of the initial attack, two people familiar with the transaction told Bloomberg. Once Darkside received the payment, Bloomberg said they provided Colonial with a decrypting tool to restore its computer network.
However, Darkside’s decryption tool was so slow that Colonial continued using its own backups to help restore the system, a source familiar with the company’s efforts told Bloomberg. Colonial declined to comment to Bloomberg, and didn’t immediately respond to a CRN request for comment.
https://www.crn.com/news/security/co...-attack-report
Idiots. If they had backups, why pay the ransom? All that does is encourage this to happen again.
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