A recent ransomware attack ended up affecting 1,500 organizations worldwide, which could potentially cost tens of millions of dollars. But it’s not the number of victims affected that is worrying experts. The attack was sophisticated and used a high level of planning closer to a government-based hacker rather than a mere criminal operation.

Who was behind the attack?

The criminal hacking gang whose malware was behind the Kaseya attacker is called REvil. REvil adopted two new hacking tactics that have not been previously used. What is most concerning is that they deployed a zero-day, which is a vulnerability in a program that software developers are unaware of and, therefore, have not been able to fix.

What is most concerning is that the hackers targeted a company with a small but essential role in the internet ecosystem. Attacking Kaseya gave them access to potentially tens or hundreds of thousands of victims.

Due to its representatives communicating online in Russian and its attacks avoid Russian devices, REvil is believed to operate in Eastern Europe or Russia. REvil has also been behind several other ransomware attacks like JBS Food last month, Apple supplier Quanta Computer in April, and Acer in March.

So far, it appears that the recent REvil attack hasn’t had any significant impact, though it did cripple several smaller American businesses. The attack caused a major Swedish grocery store to shut down for over 24 hours and infected 11 schools in New Zealand. Cybersecurity experts find supply chain hacks worrisome because they can quickly give hackers incredibly broad access.

This ransomware attack is a landmark event because it shows that cybercriminals can use zero-day vulnerabilities to cause disruption on a massive scale. Since companies will pay millions of dollars in random attacks, it inspires cybercriminals to continue hacking companies.

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