back to article Pitney Bowes: Can we be frank? Ransomware has borked our dead-tree post systems

Pitney Bowes, the US stamping meter maker, has been infected with ransomware, leaving customers unable to top-up their equipment with credit nor access the corporate web store. “At this time, the company has seen no evidence that customer or employee data has been improperly accessed,” it said in a statement today. “Our …

  1. Cannister
    FAIL

    No mail today?

    Received an email from the company mail room this morning that postal services were unavailable today due to a problem with the Pitney Bowes franking machine. Now I know why!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Only the pieces of the business run on Windows systems are affected by the attack. The Linux systems are still up and running.

  3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Presumably

    The ransom note was made from letters cut out of a newspaper and sent with the proper postage

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    not grinning at all

    to see the tables turned on pitney bowes

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    At least the junk mail will still be delivered

    I'll be able to clip coupons, thank goodness

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sorry for them but it's nice to see .............

    Having been on the other side of one of their highly onerous contacts in the past where no matter what you to do it cost you ££££ . Even the smallest change like correcting an internal contact name was charged for - now they know what it is like to be held to ransom.

    PS it was my gratest pleasures once the contract had finished, to inform them that their machine was now in the car park ready for them to collect.

    1. Stu_The_Jock

      Re: I'm sorry for them but it's nice to see .............

      Clearly depends where in teh world you are, as their Norwegian arm has always been pretty customer friendly.

  7. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "to pay or not to pay"

    If only there was some sort of technology that would allow creating a copy of production data in a known good state. Something using a different medium than the one hosting production information, allowing the copy to be kept safely. Maybe even on some outdated technology like magnetic tape.

    If only.

    1. Robert Helpmann??
      Childcatcher

      Re: "to pay or not to pay"

      I don't handle backups at my current workplace, but I wonder if there is any filtering that can be done at the time of backup that would note changes in baseline number of encrypted files being backed up. It would seem to be a useful feature in these situations.

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        How would a backup program know that the file is encrypted ?

        Since Office 2010, files are stored in compressed format. Is there a way to determine that compression is not encryption ?

        1. katrinab Silver badge

          I thought it was 2007 that introduced .docx?

          1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

            It would seem that you are right.

        2. Claptrap314 Silver badge

          Unless the compression is being REALLY obtuse, yes. There will be header information which can be scanned for.

      2. Danny 14

        Re: "to pay or not to pay"

        Just use a crypto canary for detection, and a backup at hypervisor layer to insulate from the actual virus.

    2. Stu_The_Jock

      Re: "to pay or not to pay"

      Given these infections often lie hidden for a while, quietly trying to spread across the network, how far back would you go to ensure a clean backup ? Pick the wrong one and you get re-ransomwared again at a later date.

      1. Claptrap314 Silver badge

        Re: "to pay or not to pay"

        No one said that executing a proper backup strategy would make recovery trivial. It makes it possible, and at a "reasonable" price.

        As for the slow-rollers, once you know what to look for, you can take your system restored to a state early in the infection, and stop it from doing any additional damage. So your permanent loss might be 1% instead of 60%.

        All theory here, btw.

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