Hackers exploited the victim’s infected computer to access Ireland’s public health system and tunnel across the network for weeks after luring a worker with a phishing email and a spreadsheet that was laced with malware. Infecting thousands of more systems and servers, they prowled from hospital to hospital, explored folders, and opened personal files.
By the time they demanded a ransom, they had already taken over more than 80% of the IT infrastructure, knocked out the organisation’s 100,000+ employees, and put the lives of thousands of patients in danger.
The attackers employed a “cracked,” or exploited and unauthorised, legacy version of a powerful tool to launch the 2021 attack on Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE). The tool, which is used by credible security professionals to simulate cyberattacks in defence testing, has also become a favourite tool of criminals who steal and manipulate previous versions to launch ransomware attacks around the world. In the previous two years, hackers have attempted to infect over 1.5 million devices using cracked copies of the tool Cobalt Strike.
This article has been indexed from CySecurity News – Latest Information Security and Hacking Incidents
Read the original article: