Konica Minolta struck by debilitating ransomware attack - report

Firm rocked by a relatively new type of malware

Konica Minolta struck by debilitating ransomware attack - report

Cyber

By Lyle Adriano

Information has surfaced that business technology company Konica Minolta was the target of a ransomware attack last month.

On July 30, 2020, customers reported that Konica Minolta’s product supply and support website was inaccessible, displaying a message which said that the portal was down and being fixed. The website was out of action for nearly a week, and customers took to social media to say that they could not get a straight answer from the company regarding the nature of the outage.

A number of Konica Minolta printers also displayed an error message at around the same time.

Some users on Reddit said that their contacts at Konica Minolta indicated that a breach had caused the outage. BleepingComputer attempted to contact the tech company for a comment on the matter, but the computer help website did not receive a timely response.

But an anonymous source sent BleepingComputer a copy of the ransom note used in the attack on Konica Minolta, confirming that malware caused the website and service shutdown. The note appears to be associated with a relatively new ransomware called RansomEXX – the same malware used to launch a cyberattack on the Texas Department of Transportation in June 2020.

It is believed that based on the ransom notes, the ransomware operation does not steal the victim’s data before encrypting their devices. However, BleepingComputer warned that as the ransomware operation grows, data theft may eventually be involved at some point.

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