Port of Seattle, the US authorities company overseeing Seattle’s seaport and airport, confirmed on Friday that the Rhysida ransomware operation was behind a cyberattack impacting its methods over the past three weeks.
The company revealed on August 24 that the assault compelled it to isolate a few of its essential methods to include the impression. The ensuing IT outage disrupted reservation check-in methods and delayed flights at Seattle-Tacoma Worldwide Airport.
In the present day, three weeks after the preliminary disclosure, the Port formally confirmed that the August breach was a ransomware assault coordinated by Rhysida ransomware associates.
“This incident was a “ransomware” attack by the criminal organization known as Rhysida. There has been no new unauthorized activity on Port systems since that day. It remains safe to travel from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and use the Port of Seattle’s maritime facilities,” it stated in a press launch.
“Our investigation has determined that the unauthorized actor was able to gain access to certain parts of our computer systems and was able to encrypt access to some data.”
The Port’s resolution to take methods offline and the ransomware gang encrypting those who weren’t remoted in time brought on outages impacting a number of providers and methods, together with baggage, check-in kiosks, ticketing, Wi-Fi, passenger show boards, the Port of Seattle web site, the flySEA app, and reserved parking.
Whereas the Port has already introduced most affected methods again on-line inside the week, it is nonetheless engaged on restoring different key providers, just like the Port of Seattle web site, SEA Customer Go, TSA wait instances, and flySEA app entry (except downloaded earlier than the August ransomware assault).
The Port has additionally determined to not give into the ransomware gang’s calls for to pay for a decryptor though the attackers would seemingly publish information stolen in mid-to-late August on their darkish net leak website.
“The Port of Seattle has no intent of paying the perpetrators behind the cyberattack on our network,” stated Steve Metruck, Government Director of the Port of Seattle. “Paying the criminal organization would not reflect Port values or our pledge to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars.”
Rhysida is a comparatively new ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation that surfaced in Could 2023 and rapidly gained notoriety after breaching the British Library and the Chilean Military (Ejército de Chile).
The U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers (HHS) linked Rhysida to assaults in opposition to healthcare organizations. On the identical time, CISA and the FBI warned that this cybercrime gang was additionally behind many opportunistic assaults focusing on victims throughout a variety of different business sectors.
For example, in November, Rhysida breached Sony subsidiary Insomniac Video games and leaked 1,67 TB of paperwork on the darkish net after the sport studio refused to pay a $2 million ransom.
Its associates have additionally breached the Metropolis of Columbus, Ohio, MarineMax (the world’s largest leisure boat and yacht retailer), and the Singing River Well being System. The latter warned nearly 900,000 individuals that their information had been stolen in an August 2023 Rhysida ransomware assault.
