Cyber Crime

LockBit ransomware gang hit the Commission des services electriques de Montréal (CSEM)

The LockBit ransomware gang claims to have breached the Commission des services electriques de Montréal (CSEM).

The LockBit ransomware group continues to be one of the most active extortion gangs in the threat landscape. This week the gang claimed to have hacked the Commission des services electriques de Montréal (CSEM).

The Commission des services électriques de Montréal (CSEM) is a public agency responsible for the undergrounding of electrical wires in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was created in 1910 by a partnership between the city and the private sector.

The CSEM’s mission is to provide a safe, reliable, and sustainable underground electrical network for the city of Montreal. The main activities carried out by the organization are planning and coordinating the undergrounding of electrical wires, managing and maintaining the underground electrical network, and providing information and education about underground electrical networks.

CSEM confirmed the security breach, the company confirmed the attack took place on August 3rd, 2023. The Canadian company confirmed that it has refused to pay the ransom.

The organization immediately launched an investigation into the security breach with the help of law enforcement in Quebec. At the time of this writing, CSEM has recovered impacted systems.

The LockBit ransomware group published the stolen data on August 30, 2023.

The organizations attempted to downplay the impact of the security breach explaining that CSEM projects are the subject of public documents.

“It should be noted that all CSEM projects are the subject of public documents. Therefore, all these plans – engineering, construction and management – are already publicly available through the official process offices in Quebec.” states the company.

Since August 1st, the LockBit 3 operation has already hit 140 organizations worldwide.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Lockbit 3.0)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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