Security team helps victims of ransomware attack, including Crystal Valley co-op in Minnesota

Oct 25, 20210

Jenn Ackerman, New York Times count

A farm in Maurice, Iowa, July 26, 2020. An Iowa grain cooperative, NEW Cooperative, experienced ransomware assaults in September 2021. A team of private security sleuths, in their first public detailing of their efforts, discuss how they used cybercriminals' mistakes to quietly help victims recover their data.

In a year rife with ransomware attacks, when cybercriminals have held the data of police departments, grocery and pharmacy chains, hospitals, pipelines and water treatment plants hostage with computer code, it was a win, rare in the scale of its success.

For months, a team of security experts raced to help victims of a high-profile ransomware group quietly recover their data without paying their digital assailants a dime.

It started in late summer, after the cybercriminals behind the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, known as DarkSide, emerged under a new name, BlackMatter. Soon after, the cybercriminals made a glaring mistake that most likely cost them tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.

https://www.startribune.com/security-team-helps-victims-of-ransomware-attack-including-crystal-valley-co-op-in-minnesota/600109638/