Bell Canada subsidiary Bell Technical Solutions (BTS) has confirmed it was hit by a data breach that exposed personally identifiable information of its Ontario and Québec-based customers.
The infamous gang behind the Hive ransomware, which has previously hit the Costa Rican healthcare service and French Telco Altice, claimed responsibility for the security incident. BTS' systems were compromised and encrypted on August 20, the hacker group revealed in a data leak blog.
RELATED RESOURCE
Escape the ransomware maze
Conventional endpoint protection tools just aren’t the best defence anymore
Earlier this year, Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center revealed that it had discovered a new variant of the ransomware based on the Rust language, which also included a more efficient structure, better obfuscation and hardened encryption.
Acknowledging the hack, Bell stated: "We became aware that some operational company and employee information was accessed in a recent cybersecurity incident targeted at Bell Technical Solutions."
Perpetrators may have accessed the name, address, and phone number of residential and small business customers in Ontario and Québec who booked a technician visit, the company confirmed in its cybersecurity alert. However, despite the severity of the attack, Bell affirmed that customers’ banking data was not accessed or stolen.
BTS is currently investigating the incident alongside the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's cybercrime unit. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has also been notified of the breach.
Lastly, to thwart plausible phishing attempts, the Bell subsidiary advised customers to monitor their accounts for any and all activities that appear suspicious.
"We will directly notify any individuals whose private information may have been accessed. Bell Technical Solutions operates independently from Bell on a separate IT system; other Bell customers or other Bell subsidiaries were not impacted," the company added.
-
Prolific ransomware operator added to Europe’s Most Wanted list as US dangles $10 million rewardNews The US Department of Justice is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest of Volodymyr Viktorovych Tymoshchuk, an alleged ransomware criminal.
-
Jaguar Land Rover “did the right thing” shutting down systems to thwart cyber attackNews The attack on Jaguar Land Rover highlights the growing attractiveness of the automotive sector
-
Ransomware attack on IT supplier disrupts hundreds of Swedish municipalitiesNews The attack on IT systems supplier Miljödata has impacted public sector services across the country
-
A notorious hacker group is ramping up cloud-based ransomware attacksNews The Storm-0501 threat group is refining its tactics, according to Microsoft, shifting away from traditional endpoint-based attacks and toward cloud-based ransomware.
-
Security researchers have just identified what could be the first ‘AI-powered’ ransomware strain – and it uses OpenAI’s gpt-oss-20b modelNews Using OpenAI's gpt-oss:20b model, ‘PromptLock’ generates malicious Lua scripts via the Ollama API.
-
Data I/O shuts down systems in wake of ransomware attack
News Regulatory filings by Data I/O suggest the costs of dealing with the attack could be significant
-
Average ransom payment doubles in a single quarterNews Targeted social engineering and data exfiltration have become the biggest tactics as three major ransomware groups dominate
-
BlackSuit ransomware gang taken down in latest law enforcement sting – but members have already formed a new groupNews The notorious gang has seen its servers taken down and bitcoin seized, but may have morphed into a new group called Chaos
