Data related to a customer of a recently targeted California-based private cloud solutions firm Accellion is being published online for sale by threat actors. Accellion is a file-transfer platform that is used by Steris Corporation. Many other firms were targeted by hackers a few weeks ago, threat actors exploited the security loopholes in the server of the company.
Ransomware gang ‘Clop’ has taken responsibility for the attack and is claiming to have critical information in their possession belonging to Steris Corporation. Steris Corporation is an American Irish-domiciled medical equipment firm specializing in sterilization and a leading provider of surgical products for the American healthcare system. Documents that are missing from the sever system of Steris Corporation include a confidential report regarding a phenolic disinfectant comparison study dating from 2018. This report bears the signatures of two Steris employees – technical services manager David Shields and quality assurance analyst Jennifer Shultz.
Threat actors also managed to lay their hands on another critical document containing the formula for CIP neutralizer, a highly confidential trade secret owned by Steris Corporation.
Threat analyst Brett Callow stated to Infosecurity Magazine that “Clop is known to use data stolen from one organization to attack (spear phish) others. This is why, for example, there was a cluster of cases in Germany. So, any organization that has had dealings with one of the compromised entities should be on high alert.”
“It really makes no sense for companies to pay to prevent the publication of their data. There have been multiple instances in which threat actors have published or otherwise misused information after the victims have paid the ransom. In some cases, actors have even used the same data to extort companies a second time. And this is really not at all surprising”, he further added.
Apart from Steris Corporation, the Clop ransomware gang has targeted several clients of Accellion including Jones Day, Inrix, Singtel, ExecuPharm, Plantol, Software Ag, Fugro, Nova Biomedical, Amey Plc, Allstate Peterbit, Danaher, and the CSA Group.
