Hacker group says it carried out Christie’s cyberattack
A hacker group has claimed accountability for a cyberattack that focused public sale home Christie’s earlier this month, the New York Times reported on Monday.
The assault, which disrupted the public sale home’s web site, occurred simply earlier than the beginning of its high-profile spring gross sales occasion involving greater than $850 million value of artwork, forcing Christie’s to droop on-line bidding and settle for gives solely by cellphone or in individual.
At the time, Christie’s described it as a “technology security issue,” however now a hacker group referred to as RansomHub has claimed that it was behind the cyberattack.
The group claimed in a publish on the darkish internet on Monday that it had accessed delicate details about rich artwork collectors from world wide, and threatened to launch the info on the finish of May if an settlement — presumably involving a big sum of cash — isn’t reached earlier than then.
The New York Times mentioned in its report that it was “not immediately possible to verify RansomHub’s claims,” however added that a variety of cybersecurity consultants confirmed the existence of RansomHub and described the group’s declare concerning the assault as “plausible.”
Commenting on the incident, a spokesperson for Christie’s mentioned in a launch: “Our investigations determined there was unauthorized access by a third party to parts of Christie’s network. [We] also determined that the group behind the incident took some limited amount of personal data relating to some of our clients. There is no evidence that any financial or transactional records were compromised.”
In its message on the darkish internet seen by the New York Times, the hacker group mentioned it had “attempted to come to a reasonable resolution with [Christie’s], but they ceased communication midway through.”
The group added that if it posts the info containing data on the public sale’s home’s purchasers, Christie’s “will incur heavy fines” below the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), part of European privateness regulation and human rights regulation.
RansomHub additionally claimed to be behind a cyberattack on Change Healthcare earlier this yr wherein it mentioned it managed to steal 4 terabytes of information containing particulars on sufferers. Earlier this month, the CEO of Change Healthcare mum or dad UnitedHealth Group admitted to paying a $22 million ransom to the hackers in a bid to guard affected person knowledge.
Ransomware assaults are becoming increasingly common, with criminals raking in enormous sums of cash yearly. The FBI has mentioned it doesn’t assist paying a ransom in response to a ransomware assault, because it doesn’t assure that knowledge won’t be uncovered and can solely encourage extra assaults.
