Chilean bank BancoEstado, shuts down all of its branches following a REVil ransomware attack and was forced to remain closed since September 7.
Chilean bank BancoEstado, shuts down all of its branches following a REVil ransomware attack and was forced to remain closed since September 7.
"Our branches will not be operational and will remain closed today," the bank tweeted on Monday.
The bank disclosed the attack on Sunday via Twitter and decided to keep branches closed to investigate the incident and recover its systems.
BancoEstado
BancoEstado was the third-largest bank in Chile by the end of 2009. In 2012, Global Finance magazine has ranked BancoEstado as the safest Bank in Latin America and in 2015 it was ranked as the 48th-safest bank in the world
The details about the attack was not made public, but a source close to the investigation told that the bank's internal network was infected with the REvil (Sodinokibi) ransomware.
Investigators believe that on the night between Friday and Saturday, hackers installed ransomware using the backdoor of the bank’s network. The incident originated using spam messages from malicious Office documents received and opened by an employee.
The attack was first spotted by the bank employees working weekend shifts when they couldn’t access their work files on Saturday.
The ransomware encrypted most of the company servers and workstations.
The bank reported to Chilean police and launched an investigation into the incident. The Chilean CSIRT issued a cyber-security alert warning about a ransomware campaign targeting the private sectors.
According to the bank statement, its website, the banking portal, mobile apps, and the ATM network were not impacted thanks to a good design of the BancoEstado’s infrastructure.
The bank disclosed the attack on Sunday, but later, bank officials realized employees wouldn't be able to work on Monday, and decided to keep branches closed, while they recover.
This is the second time the hackers targeted Chilean banks.
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