Ransomware Infects Main Server of Large Insurance Company in Oman

A ransomware attack has hit Oman United Insurance Company SAOG, one of the largest insurers in Oman, but operations apparently remain unaffected.

Finance is one of the sectors most targeted by hackers, including banks, fintech firms, or insurance companies. One way to compromise a financial organization is with ransomware, and this is exactly what happened with Oman United Insurance Company SAOG.

The company notified the Capital Market Authority that bad actors attacked their main server on January 1, 2020, and managed to encrypt some data. However, it released no specific information to the public.

“The main server was hit and some data was also infected and encrypted,” said a spokesperson for The Oman Daily Observer. “The company lost some data relating to the period from December 10, 2019, to January 1, 2020.”

“The online operation was suspended only for one day (Thursday, January 2, 2020). However, the server is operating and we recovered the lost data.”

From what the company revealed, it looks like they had all the data backed up and restored operations quickly. Ransomware attacks are starting to evolve, and some hackers will now try to exfiltrate data, which they use for leverage during ransom talks. Fortunately for the Oman-based insurer, that wasn”t the case.

One of Bitdefender”s 2020 Cybersecurity Predictions relates specifically to ransomware and companies in the financial sector. Ransomware is likely to be deployed in a more targeted fashion, with the help of social engineering, BEC (Business Email Compromise) attacks, and phishing campaigns.