In the latest ransomware news, the Singapore headquarters of the media giant, The Nikkei Group Asia has become the victim of a ransomware attack which they say was first detected on May 13, 2022.
The Japanese media company behind The Nikkei and Financial Times is yet to release information divulging the full scope of the attack, but in a press release made public on May 19th, the company announced that their Singapore headquarters had been hit and that they had shut down the affected server to begin resolving the attack.
After recognizing unauthorized access to their internal server on the 13th, Nikkei investigated further, leading to the discovery of the breach. They stated that it was likely that customer data has been affected, however they have not yet discovered any public leak of the data.
This follows an incident in 2019 which cost the organization approximately $29 million after an employee was given fraudulent instructions to transfer the sum to a third party through a BEC swindle.
The Nikkei headquarters are only one of many Singapore-based companies which have been the unfortunate subject of such security breaches. Astoundingly, ransomware attacks in Singapore have increased by 154% since 2020. In that year, a total of 17,117 cases of cybercrime were accounted for ranging from ransomware to C&C servers and Botnet drones, and phishing which held the most significant number of incidents at 47000 cases.
From mid-2020 to 2021 there was a global upward trend of cyber-attacks which are only advancing in their nature with time. This year, even global enterprises including Toyota and Puma have suffered large-scale and production-halting cyber-attacks,
The recent incident that has taken place at the Nikkei Group Asia’s HQ and those similar in nature should encourage organizations in all industries to strengthen their security defenses, improving detection and mitigation, as attacks like this will undoubtedly continue to occur.
In their press release, The Nikkei Group apologized for the incident, adding that they were taking measures to contain the matter as efficiently as possible. “We will take appropriate action in cooperation with relevant authorities and strive to enhance information protection.”
The recent incident that has taken place at the Nikkei Group Asia’s HQ and those similar in nature should encourage organizations in all industries to strengthen their security defenses, improving detection and mitigation, as attacks like this will undoubtedly continue to occur.
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