ArbiterSports, a company that supplies software for sports clubs and events to manage referees and scheduling, has reported a data breach. The company in its filing (1, 2) with various US states said they had thwarted encryption of its files by a ransomware group, but failed to bar attackers from stealing the sensitive details. It says the PII of about 540,000 users is affected in this incident.
Partially Succeeded!
ArbiterSports is a professional software supplier for many college events, sports clubs and even the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The company has reported a security incident revealing that it was attacked by a ransomware group back in July this year, and succeeded partially!
Though it was successful in stopping the attackers from encrypting its files, it failed to stop them from stealing the data already. This happens generally with all the ransomware groups, where they’d initially exploit a system resource to gain access into the network, steal sensitive data and then encrypt the devices in that network.
Attackers herein were in the same pursuit, but they were stopped in the mid-way. Yet, the breach has already happened as the ArbiterSports said that ArbiterGame, ArbiterOne, and ArbiterWorks were compromised, where the attackers have stolen data containing PII of about 540,000 referees and match officials.
These three web applications were actually used for managing the schedules and training programs of referees and game officials. ArbiterSports says the PII includes their “account usernames, passwords, real names, addresses, dates of birth, email addresses, and Social Security numbers.” Though the Social Security numbers and passwords were encrypted, attackers have managed to decrypt them.
Since the attackers have already had their hands on sensitive data, they demanded ransom from ArbiterSports. And the company claims to have paid it to exchange for deleting the data. But, it’s unsure whether the attackers have made any copies of it before deleting the database.
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