Cyber incidents: Christie's, Helsinki's administrative network and Santander
Over the course of the week, several well-known organizations reported cyberattacks. Christie's, Helsinki City Council and Santander Bank were affected.
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Cyber attacks remain the order of the day. In the recent past, criminals have managed to attack a number of well-known institutions.
The FAZ reports on a breach of the website of the renowned London auction house Christie's. A rudimentary website is currently up and running again, with an unusual URL. This week, a number of high-profile car auctions were scheduled to be postponed by a few days. The auction of watches belonging to racing driver Michael Schumacher, for example, took place on Tuesday instead of Monday, but raised around 3.2 million euros for the family. There is currently no further information on the attack - it is unclear which criminal group accessed which systems without authorization. The auction house is not providing any further details.
Break-in into the Helsinki education network
The Finnish police announced that on the night of April 30, the network of the city of Helsinki suffered a leak. Specifically, the City of Helsinki reported to the police that a data leak had occurred in the education computer network. The scope and impact of the intrusion is currently being investigated by investigators together with the City of Helsinki. "The victim of the crime is the City of Helsinki, from whom the police are receiving all the information they need to investigate the case. Residents of the city do not need to contact the police," advises the deputy police chief. The investigation is still at an early stage, and the police intend to release further information "if it is needed for the investigation".
The Spanish Santander Bank, which operates globally, has also reported an incident involving a data leak. Unauthorized access had taken place to a Santander database operated by a third-party provider. This database contained information on customers of Santander in Chile, Spain and Uruguay, as well as all current and some former employees who were accessed in the incident. Customer data in other markets where Santander is active was not affected. However, no transaction or access data that would allow transactions, including online banking details or passwords, were affected. Other banking systems are not affected and customers can continue to carry out secure transactions. The bank has also taken measures to mitigate the impact of the incident, including blocking the compromised access and putting in place unspecified anti-fraud measures.
Two weeks ago, several institutions were also victims of IT incidents. Nearly 80 stores of the Canadian pharmacy and retail chain London Drugs had to close temporarily. Meanwhile, the largest healthcare company in the USA, United Health, found the cause of a break-in - a server was not secured with multifactor authentication and the attackers were able to break in through remote Citrix access.
(dmk)