Headlines June
Woman drives a burning car to the gas station along the A1 near Holten
Panic at Shell gas station along the A1 at Holten. Employees saw a burning car driving on the highway, which to their horror took the exit to the gas station. Employees did not manage to extinguish the fire themselves, after which the fire brigade immediately put out large equipment. "We saw the car approaching, with smoke coming out of the windows," says one employee. "We hoped she wouldn't drive here."
Emergency button
The gas station employees pressed the emergency button as the car approached, shutting down the pumps. The driver parked the car a few meters in front of the roof near the pumps. Pump workers ran to the car with fire extinguishers, but they were unable to extinguish the fire. The fire brigade then extinguished the car. The fire has not spread to the gas station.
Source: https://www.rtvoost.nl/nieuws/331594/Vrouw-rijdt-met-brandende-auto-naar-tankstation-langs-A1-bij-Holten
Telephone outageVodafone
Vodafone business customers suffered from a malfunction this morning. The main problems were with the internet and fixed telephony. The cause of the malfunction is not yet known. The outage started around 2:30 AM last night. According to the company, there were problems in the data center. "So it's not your device or your location," Vodafone wrote on Twitter. Many municipalities across the country were affected by the outage. The Hague, Alkmaar, Purmerend, Tietjerksteradeel and Goes, among others, as well as many care institutions and hospitals reported that they were not available by phone. A number announced via social media that they had taken a temporary emergency number into use. Some safety regions were also inaccessible. It is not clear how many customers have been affected. Some people were also unable to make mobile calls.
Source: https://nos.nl/artikel/2336909-landelijke-storing-telefoonverkeer-vodafone-door-problemen-in-datacenter.html
Hackers hostage Koninklijke Reesink - impact on company 'enormous'
Dutch agricultural distributor Royal Reesink has fallen victim to an attack with ransomware. The Apeldoorn company, which has branches in 10 countries and had a turnover of almost 1 billion euros in 2019, has been out of order since the beginning of June. Seventy percent of the 35 affiliated companies were affected by the digital attack. The Apeldoorn company Royal Reesink sells machines for agriculture, among other things. The company decided to shut down all networks worldwide, marketing manager Judith Dijkstra confirms to de Volkskrant . In an attack with ransomware - also known as ransomware - hackers first look for a way to infect a company. This can be done by means of a phishing email. Once inside, they attempt to manually take over the network. In doing so, they look for a company's backup systems: if they are also held hostage, a company is forced to pay a ransom. A company can reset the systems by means of a backup with company data. That will not work if the attackers also take the backup hostage. Security experts therefore always recommend storing three versions of their own data. On at least two different systems where one backup is not connected to the company network.
"We are well secured, but they still got somewhere," says Judith Dijkstra of the Apeldoorn company with 2500 employees, who was awarded the title 'Royal' in 2003. Royal Reesink is an international distributor and service provider of machines for, among others, agriculture, internal logistics and road and hydraulic engineering. According to Dijkstra, the impact on the company is 'enormous'. Royal Reesink has engaged Northwave, a digital security company, to take ransomware off the systems and rebuild the network. Dijkstra: 'We thought everything was fine. Yet there appeared to be a small hole in security somewhere. The attackers took advantage of that. It's just bad luck. " Ransomware attacks have been on the rise for years and are lucrative for the attackers. In the first quarter of 2020, the average amount that affected companies paid increased by 33 percent to more than $ 100,000 ($ 90,000), according to an analysis by the American research agency Coveware.
Millions of euros
Behind the ransomware is an attractive revenue model: the software is offered for sale as a service on the dark web - the part of the internet that can be reached with a special browser and where users are anonymous. Criminals can subscribe to such a service and if they manage to take a business hostage, the software creator will share in the profits. Criminals carefully select their victims: preferably production companies where the costs rise quickly when the work is stopped. A successful infection is almost impossible to combat. Once the corporate network is acquired and properly encrypted, it is impossible to get back to files without a decryption key. If you want to crack the code in a computer-controlled way, it would take hundreds of years to undo the encryption. Royal Reesink probably also had to pay, but the company makes no statement about that. The company is insured against ransomware attacks. Dijkstra cannot say exactly how extensive the damage is. "The investigation is still ongoing." It is probably millions of euros. Criminals who make ransomware do it in an increasingly ingenious way. Researchers from Northwave recently discovered LockBit in Brabant. Hostage software that, once access to a company and the attackers have administrator rights, automatically spreads over a network. Like 'a worm' looking for computers to infect. Dijkstra: "We are now working hard to restore the backups." The most important systems have recently been online again.
Source: https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/hackers-gijzelen-koninklijke-reesink-impact-op-bedrijf-enorm~b075efcd/
Panic at Shell gas station along the A1 at Holten. Employees saw a burning car driving on the highway, which to their horror took the exit to the gas station. Employees did not manage to extinguish the fire themselves, after which the fire brigade immediately put out large equipment. "We saw the car approaching, with smoke coming out of the windows," says one employee. "We hoped she wouldn't drive here."
Emergency button
The gas station employees pressed the emergency button as the car approached, shutting down the pumps. The driver parked the car a few meters in front of the roof near the pumps. Pump workers ran to the car with fire extinguishers, but they were unable to extinguish the fire. The fire brigade then extinguished the car. The fire has not spread to the gas station.
Source: https://www.rtvoost.nl/nieuws/331594/Vrouw-rijdt-met-brandende-auto-naar-tankstation-langs-A1-bij-Holten
Telephone outageVodafone
Vodafone business customers suffered from a malfunction this morning. The main problems were with the internet and fixed telephony. The cause of the malfunction is not yet known. The outage started around 2:30 AM last night. According to the company, there were problems in the data center. "So it's not your device or your location," Vodafone wrote on Twitter. Many municipalities across the country were affected by the outage. The Hague, Alkmaar, Purmerend, Tietjerksteradeel and Goes, among others, as well as many care institutions and hospitals reported that they were not available by phone. A number announced via social media that they had taken a temporary emergency number into use. Some safety regions were also inaccessible. It is not clear how many customers have been affected. Some people were also unable to make mobile calls.
Source: https://nos.nl/artikel/2336909-landelijke-storing-telefoonverkeer-vodafone-door-problemen-in-datacenter.html
Hackers hostage Koninklijke Reesink - impact on company 'enormous'
Dutch agricultural distributor Royal Reesink has fallen victim to an attack with ransomware. The Apeldoorn company, which has branches in 10 countries and had a turnover of almost 1 billion euros in 2019, has been out of order since the beginning of June. Seventy percent of the 35 affiliated companies were affected by the digital attack. The Apeldoorn company Royal Reesink sells machines for agriculture, among other things. The company decided to shut down all networks worldwide, marketing manager Judith Dijkstra confirms to de Volkskrant . In an attack with ransomware - also known as ransomware - hackers first look for a way to infect a company. This can be done by means of a phishing email. Once inside, they attempt to manually take over the network. In doing so, they look for a company's backup systems: if they are also held hostage, a company is forced to pay a ransom. A company can reset the systems by means of a backup with company data. That will not work if the attackers also take the backup hostage. Security experts therefore always recommend storing three versions of their own data. On at least two different systems where one backup is not connected to the company network.
"We are well secured, but they still got somewhere," says Judith Dijkstra of the Apeldoorn company with 2500 employees, who was awarded the title 'Royal' in 2003. Royal Reesink is an international distributor and service provider of machines for, among others, agriculture, internal logistics and road and hydraulic engineering. According to Dijkstra, the impact on the company is 'enormous'. Royal Reesink has engaged Northwave, a digital security company, to take ransomware off the systems and rebuild the network. Dijkstra: 'We thought everything was fine. Yet there appeared to be a small hole in security somewhere. The attackers took advantage of that. It's just bad luck. " Ransomware attacks have been on the rise for years and are lucrative for the attackers. In the first quarter of 2020, the average amount that affected companies paid increased by 33 percent to more than $ 100,000 ($ 90,000), according to an analysis by the American research agency Coveware.
Millions of euros
Behind the ransomware is an attractive revenue model: the software is offered for sale as a service on the dark web - the part of the internet that can be reached with a special browser and where users are anonymous. Criminals can subscribe to such a service and if they manage to take a business hostage, the software creator will share in the profits. Criminals carefully select their victims: preferably production companies where the costs rise quickly when the work is stopped. A successful infection is almost impossible to combat. Once the corporate network is acquired and properly encrypted, it is impossible to get back to files without a decryption key. If you want to crack the code in a computer-controlled way, it would take hundreds of years to undo the encryption. Royal Reesink probably also had to pay, but the company makes no statement about that. The company is insured against ransomware attacks. Dijkstra cannot say exactly how extensive the damage is. "The investigation is still ongoing." It is probably millions of euros. Criminals who make ransomware do it in an increasingly ingenious way. Researchers from Northwave recently discovered LockBit in Brabant. Hostage software that, once access to a company and the attackers have administrator rights, automatically spreads over a network. Like 'a worm' looking for computers to infect. Dijkstra: "We are now working hard to restore the backups." The most important systems have recently been online again.
Source: https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/hackers-gijzelen-koninklijke-reesink-impact-op-bedrijf-enorm~b075efcd/
Translated from Dutch to English with Google translate