COLUMBUS, Ohio—It appears another credit union organization, this time Columbus Metro CU here, has been hit by ransomware attack in which the criminal group Maze has posted some of the CU’s sensitive member data on its website as part of a ransom threat.
The data stolen appears to include members’ names, addresses and social security numbers, Bret Callow, threat analyst with Emsisoft, told CUToday.info.
As CUToday.info previously reported, hackers from a criminal organization called Maze earlier this year allegedly stole data from a company that does collections for credit unions and posted some of it online. The company, CU Collections, is based in Manassas, Va.
In the latest case, MAZE apparently has posted a sample of $242-million Columbus Metro’s data on its site. The group posts a sample of the data to prove to the organization hit by the attack that they have the data in their hands, Callow said. Then, typically what the fraudsters do is demand payment and threaten to post all of the data on their site—which is accessible to anyone on the Internet—if the demand is not met.
Ransom Amount Not Revealed
The amount of money the hackers are requesting in order to not publish the member data has not been revealed.
Callow said these sorts of ransomware attacks sometimes include encrypting the victim’s data.
As Callow told CUToday.info earlier this year, financial institutions should brace for more of these types of attacks.
“This is the second known incident involving a CU organization, but so many types of companies in the U.S. are now being hit,” he said.
CUToday.info reached out to Columbus Metro, but comment was not provided by press time.