FUJIFILM shuts down network after suspected ransomware attack

[Kino]

However, they had backups, are using them and refused to pay the ransom...
https://www.verdict.co.uk/fujifilm-ransom-demand/
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...wn-network-after-suspected-ransomware-attack/

 

[Huss]

In other news, Fujifilm announced an immediate across the board price increase of its film products by 25% "due to unforeseen costs".















(not really)

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

"Fujifilm – once known for selling photographic film but now produces biotechnology, chemical and other digital imaging products – detected unauthorised access to its servers on 1 June".

Is it no wonder that most people think that film is dead with a statement like that??
Good for them for not caving into these thugs.

 

[foc]

If they cave in to the ransom hackers, then where will it stop?
These criminals attacked the Irish Health Service in May causing a huge upset in the hospital and health care system. Since they didn't get their €16.5 million ransom they then handed over a software too for "free".
Of course, the free tool could be a Trojan horse-type malware.
It appears the criminals are based in Eastern Europe and may have links to certain political organizations. (which could be one of the reasons they can operate).
They try to blackmail the victim/organisation by saying that they will leak customer/patients/personal data. Under GDPR this could open up huge litigation claims.

 

[BrianShaw]

The nerve of those people…

 

[cmacd123]

One of Fuji's digital products is computer backup tape cartridges as I recall. oh yes: https://www.fujifilm.com/ca/en/business/data-storage#

 

[AgX]

It appears the criminals are based in Eastern Europe and may have links to certain political organizations. (which could be one of the reasons they can operate).

But of what political importance is Fuji? Unless these criminals aided by "certain political organizations" use their means for blackmailing beyond political implications too, without benefit for these organisations.

 

[foc]

But of what political importance is Fuji? Unless these criminals aided by "certain political organizations" use their means for blackmailing beyond political implications too, without benefit for these organisations.

The second part. It is speculated that these criminals are allowed to operate by/with the help of these political organisations. It may not be for a political reason but purely financial or both.
They use the cyber security breach as the means to demand a ransom. They also use the leaking of sensitive/personal data as blackmail.

 

[gone]

There's at least two wonderfully low tech solutions to this sort of thing. Keep the stuff w/ sensitive data on it away from the internet! Or, my favorite solution, go to the surplus store and buy a lot of metal file cabinets. Sure, it would cost some money, and you'd have to hire a lot of people to grab needed files, but hey!, businesses did just this for many, many years. It obviously works.

 

[Peter Schrager]

I've been hit too..they are demanding my stash of 8x10 film!!

 

[foc]

There's at least two wonderfully low tech solutions to this sort of thing. Keep the stuff w/ sensitive data on it away from the internet! Or, my favorite solution, go to the surplus store and buy a lot of metal file cabinets. Sure, it would cost some money, and you'd have to hire a lot of people to grab needed files, but hey!, businesses did just this for many, many years. It obviously works.

I agree with you, pen and paper can't be beaten, but it would make doing business in this day and age very slow and uneconomical BUT very safe from cyber attack.

 

[Chan Tran]

Too bad counterhacking is illegal.

 

[cmacd123]

Too bad counterhacking is illegal.

it is not, BUT you have to work for the NSA.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Oh great! I wish I had gotten there first, and held them ransom just to get a product availability question answered. That seems to be what it takes. And now I gotta pay a 25% surcharge just to try again? By the time someone finally responds, maybe twelve years from now, maybe not, paper will probably cost five times as much.

But if you've paid attention to the news these days, you'll know that ransom ware can be downloaded and rented within minutes for about a 50% cut of what is finally extorted, while the primary actor outside legal reach handles all the negotiations and so forth on behalf of the slimy middleman. Everything is transacted in untraceable cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. But what they didn't count on is that somewhere in between, that crypto ransom fee has to be itself parked or deposited into a cyber bank accessible to both conspiring parties. And the FBI had already infected the primary one with their own spyware. So when they dipped in to take their half, it had all evaporated into cyberspace instead, or perhaps even been retrieved. The public is not supposed to know too much, because it's an ongoing sting; but hundreds of con artists and druglords have already been caught. That doesn't mean all are capable of being extradited. But it does mean a crack has been discovered in their armor with significant results, along with a weighty warning.

 

[grat]

One of Fuji's digital products is computer backup tape cartridges as I recall. oh yes: https://www.fujifilm.com/ca/en/business/data-storage#

The problem is, tape backup simply can't keep up with the rate at which data is expanding. My job would be down for weeks doing a tape restore. Instead, we do nightly snapshots to an offsite system. We might lose a couple days of data that we'd have to reload from journals, but we could (and have) switched over to our remote site for day-to-day operations while we reloaded data into the production system.

There's at least two wonderfully low tech solutions to this sort of thing. Keep the stuff w/ sensitive data on it away from the internet! Or, my favorite solution, go to the surplus store and buy a lot of metal file cabinets. Sure, it would cost some money, and you'd have to hire a lot of people to grab needed files, but hey!, businesses did just this for many, many years. It obviously works.

Much like tape backup, it just doesn't scale for modern business. Businesses doing this in "the good old days" weren't multi-national companies with real time business. You could take a day or two to go look up a file-- now, you'd lose tens of millions of dollars while sending someone to do that lookup.

The real answer is better security. But no one has held anyone responsible for the crap security they install by default. Most often, these hacks occur because people are running hideously out-of-date software with no security updates. Legislatures keep raising the penalties, but they're literally penalizing the victims-- and the costs to comply with a data breach and the penalties can now be high enough to bankrupt a company.

Too bad counterhacking is illegal.

The Colonial Pipeline may have been a step too far. The FBI treated that attack as a terrorist attack, and threw the entire Justice Department at it-- and apparently, much of the ransom that was paid has been recovered. It's time to start treating these government sanctioned cyberattacks as actual attacks, with political and diplomatic consequences.