The Gates Corporation Falls Victim to Extortion Attack
The American company Gates Corporation, a manufacturer of transmission belts and hydraulic products headquartered in Denver, Colorado, recently became the target of an extortion attack. Hackers successfully encrypted the company’s servers and gained unauthorized access to confidential employee documents.
Established in 1911, Gates Corporation currently employs over 15,000 individuals. Although the cyber attack, known as Cyberataka, occurred in February, news of the incident has only recently gained public attention. The corporation assures that no ransom was paid to the hackers for decrypting their servers and restoring functionality. Instead, the company was able to resolve the situation independently.
Regrettably, personal information belonging to Gates Corporation employees was stolen, a fact which the corporation openly acknowledged, albeit after some time. The attackers managed to obtain information pertaining to more than 11,000 individuals employed by Gates. The stolen data includes:
- Names
- Home addresses
- Date of birth
- Social insurance numbers
- Information about direct deposits
- Driver’s licenses
- Passports
The corporation claims that the hackers’ sole motive was financial gain and not the theft of information. As of now, no reports of misuse of the stolen data have been received. However, given the nature of hackers, there is a possibility that they may attempt to sell the information or distribute it for free to establish credibility among their peers and demonstrate to companies the importance of considering ransom payments.
The corporation expressed its dedication to safeguarding employee information and has implemented measures to reduce the likelihood of future cyber attacks. This includes enhancing threat detection and enforcing stricter remote access procedures to adapt to the ever-evolving cyber landscape, as mentioned in the letter addressed to employees.
It remains unclear why news of the cyber attack only came to light recently. It is likely that employees were unaware of the situation until then. However, in defense of the Gates Corporation, the company has offered all affected employees free identity monitoring services and credit history checks to prevent the malicious use of compromised data.