The White House said on Sunday it was offering help to victims of a widespread ransomware epidemic that has affected hundreds of businesses around the world, including Kaseya, a Miami-based IT company.
Kaseya said nearly 60 customers were directly affected by the attack.
The full impact of the intrusion has yet to be determined, in part because Kaseya’s software tool, which was breached by the cybercriminals, is used by so-called managed service providers, outsourcing shops that other companies use to carry out their back-office IT work.
Kaseya said on Sunday that it had hired cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc to help deal with the aftermath of the breach.
President Joe Biden has directed U.S. intelligence agencies to investigate who is behind the ransomware attack.
Security firm Huntress Labs said on Friday it firmly believed the Russia-linked REvil ransomware gang was responsible for the latest attack, and last month the FBI blamed the same group for the attack on meatpacker JBS SA.
The two largest nations affected by the ransomware attack are the United States and Germany, said Ross McKerchar, chief information security officer at Sophos Group Plc.
The frequency of German victims could be attributed to the breach of a major provider there.
Germany’s cybersecurity watchdog said that an unidentified IT service provider serving several thousand customers had been attacked.
Schools, small public institutions, travel and leisure organizations, credit unions and accountants were affected.
McKerchar said the wave of disruption was another example of how difficult it is for medium-sized businesses to crack down on increasingly well-financed cybercrime gangs.
In some cases, chain reactions led to further disturbances.
For more information, read the original story in Reuters.
