A noted ransomware group, whose name has been withheld for reasons, has struck a car dealership this time and information is out that the car retailer lost sensitive data from its internal systems that could be among some of its former and current employees.
Holdcroft, a car retailer in the West of Midlands, has issued a public statement admitting that the attack was so severe that some core systems became irreparable and almost 60% of its critical infrastructure was compromised or was locked up with encryption.
Details of the ransomware note will be released to the media after the National Cyber Security Center in alliance with the Information Commissioner’s Office(ICO) have concluded the probe.
The good news is that Holdcroft Motor Group has an efficient data continuity plan in place and so is sure to recover quickly from the incident and that too without paying a penny. But there is a high probability that the criminal gang could have stolen a portion of sensitive data from the database and so have to be contacted for negotiations as they could sell the data to the business competitors or to interested parties like marketing firms.
NOTE- Car selling dealers hold a good amount of information about customers and employees and so hackers are treating them as soft targets these days. In March this year, UK’s TrustFord Dealership was hit by a ransomware cyber attack and it prompted over 100 employees to sue the firm as the company kept them in dark about the data breach.
