22nd April 2021, Kathmandu
The Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association are investigating a cyber-attack against their networks from a relatively new ransomware group that claims to have stolen internal business data. The Rockets confirmed the attempted intrusion. Tracey Hughes, a spokesperson for the team, said the attack hasn’t impacted operations.
Ransomware is a type of malicious code that typically encrypts a victim’s data. The hackers then demand a ransom to decrypt the information. More recently, ransomware gangs have also stolen data and threatened to make it public unless the victim pays a fee. Babuk Ransomware is turning out to be one of the most successful ransomware campaigns to hit organizations in 2021. Until mid-January, five organizations have already confirmed to have been breached by the newly discovered strain — and one is known to have paid a ransom of as much as $85,000 to the criminals.
It is the Rockets vs the Babuk ransomware gang, and it seems like Babuk has drawn first blood with a slam dunk. No, we are not talking about a basketball match here. We are talking about an alleged ransomware attack that claims to have leaked Houston Rockets’ internal business data on the dark web. The investigation is still ongoing, and a team spokesperson said that they are coordinating and working with the FBI in close quarters.
As per a Reuters report, Houston Rockets’ “internal security tools” successfully defended the alleged ransomware attack however, a few systems were impacted during the attack. Tracey Hughes, the team’s spokesperson told Bloomberg that the “attack has not affected any operations” of the team in the ongoing NBA season. He added that the attack did not curtail “our ability to take care of our fans, employees, and players.”
Houston Rockets’ spokesperson did confirm that it was a ransomware attempt but when asked about the name of the criminal gang behind the attack, he remained tight-lipped. However, Bloomberg’s report called out the newly discovered Babuk ransomware gang, which is said to be targeting known organizations off late.
