Up to 1,500 organizations compromised in Kaseya ransomware attack

Around 1,500 businesses have been affected by the recent ransomware attack on customers of Kaseya’s VSA software, according to the firm.

In a statement, Kaseya said that approximately 50 of its 35,000 customers had been affected by the supply-chain attack on 2 July.

The company said that once the attack was established, law enforcement and government cybersecurity agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), were notified and immediately engaged.

“Soon after the attack, with the assistance from the FBI and CISA, the root cause of the attack was identified,” the company said.

Kaseya added that while the attack affected only 50 of its customers, many of those are managed service providers, using Kaseya’s technology to manage IT infrastructure for local and small businesses with less than 30 employees, such as dentists’ offices, small accounting offices, and local restaurants.

Of the approximately 800,000 to 1,000,000 local and small businesses that are managed by Kaseya’s customers, only about 800 to 1,500 have been compromised.

“Our global teams are working around the clock to get our customers back up and running,” said Fred Voccola, CEO of Kaseya. “We understand that every second they are shut down, it impacts their livelihood, which is why we’re working feverishly to get this resolved.”

The White House has urged potential victims of the attack to report their security concerns to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

"Since Friday, the United States Government has been working across the interagency to assess the Kaseya ransomware incident and assist in the response," said Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology in a statement.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have been working with Kaseya and coordinating to conduct outreach to impacted victims.

Busra Demir, a senior solutions architect at HackerOne, told IT Pro that the news that Kaseya was working with researchers on the 0-day fix shows how much it came down to a race against the clock.

“Coordinated vulnerability disclosure helps organizations understand what weaknesses they have but it all hinges on how fast those vulnerabilities can be fixed. It’s no surprise that so many organizations measure the success of their security testing programs on how fast they can fix the vulnerabilities that surfaced,” she said.