Today's 'sophisticated cyber attack' victim is the Woodland Trust: Pre-Xmas breach under investigation The Woodland Trust, a peaceful British charity that looks after trees, was struck by a “cyber attack” before Christmas. Members of the trust, which says it has planted 43 million trees since its foundation in 1972, were informed last night of what was inevitably described as a “sophisticated, high level cyber-incident.” It …
I doubt they were involved in any way, but see:
https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/yorkshire/news/2069341-harrogate-waters-expansion-plans-refused
If the Woodlands Trust advises people on how to object to planning applications, that could cost some companies a lot of money, and cause them lots of problems. Details of WT membership might indicate where objections to plans are likely to be raised and by whom. I suspect there may be unscrupulous people out there who would like to be forewarned of such possible adversaries.
"If it is ransomware, the attack goes to show that no organisation, no matter how innocuous, is off-limits"
Early victims weren't even organisations. They were individuals such as me cousin-in-law who got hit with an email apparently from a friend. Fortunately that wasn't a sophisticate one - it simply deleted the original files instead of overwriting them.
But it just illustrates that any organisation, however unlikely a target it might think itself, needs a defence in depth.
Their website mostly continued working and new content was posted, including a message saying that they had IT problems. But it was seven weeks before they said that they had been attacked and told members that data might have been compromised.
Their sales of Xmas cards and gifts must have been badly affected. I don't normally use Twitter but a brief look at their Twitter feed before Christmas showed lots of unanswered questions about people's orders.
Very shortly before the incident they were strongly attacked in a video by Nigel Farage for needlessly felling lots of trees. For myself, having seen them working effectively for very many years, I have no doubt that they have been doing their best for conservation, but I've not been able to find their response to Farage so it seems that they decided to ignore him. I don't think this is a wise approach, as their silence could be seen as an admission of guilt. There seems no connection between the two attacks but it is an odd coincidence.
Which I am not aware about?
Do you ever get the feeling some of these wankers in these organisations actually want to get ransomware because it will bring some excitement to their lives, and of course someone gets to play hero
I like the way El Reg want clarification of what “disconnecting IT” looks like
The fact no answer came is probably because they do not actually know, but I suspect in their heads it probably looks a bit like turning the water mains off.
Ultimately the buck stops with the CEO, cos IT isn't even a recognised profession lulz
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