Newest ransomware victim pays hackers £18,600

Although discussion about cybercrime focuses on large infrastructure, federal government and big enterprises, the most recent attack, on a London-based IT company, proves small and medium businesses are also very much at risk.

VESK, the provider of hosted virtual desktop services and subsidiary of Nasstar, is the most recent victim, getting infected with a new type of Samas DR ransomware. Because it was a new strain, their security software solution didn”t detect it.

Following two login fails in one month, the company now paid 29 bitcoins for the decryption key to regain access to one of its environments which had been infected on Monday morning, affecting some 15 percent of their customers.

Once VESK detected the attack, they ran “restores from backups and also paying for the decryption keys, to attack the problem from both angles,” said Nigel Redwood, CEO of Nasstar. Getting Citirx up and running was not possible until the entire problem was identified.

As ransomware is a growing threat, the company announced it is working on a comprehensive strategy to prevent this from happening again to avoid further damage to their brand reputation and to their relationship with clients.