The breach compromised the personal records of nearly 947,000 customers and employees, exposing identification numbers and staff banking information. Intruders deployed ransomware across 26 servers and encrypted files on 20 machines, though the firm refused to respond to the ransom demand. Investigations showed that systems were operating on outdated software like Windows Server 2008 without adequate security reviews. While staff members were warned directly, the company chose not to notify affected customers based on its internal harm assessment.
Key points
Hackers compromised sensitive staff bank accounts and customer identification numbers thr…: Hackers compromised sensitive staff bank accounts and customer identification numbers through unpatched, internet-accessible recovery servers.
The retailer declined to pay an unspecified ransom demand and observed no data leaks duri…: The retailer declined to pay an unspecified ransom demand and observed no data leaks during 12 months of monitoring.
Affected employees received direct breach notifications from the company, while impacted…: Affected employees received direct breach notifications from the company, while impacted customers were not alerted to the incident.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
SINGAPORE – Electronics and furniture retailer Courts has been fined $178,000 over a ransomware attack that compromised the personal data of nearly one million people, marking its third breach of data protection obligations since January 2019.
The Sept 2022 attack affected 946,972 people, comprising 941,513 customers and 5,459 current, former and prospective employees, according to a Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) decision dated Aug 11 and published on its website on Oct 26.
Among the most sensitive information affected were employees’ bank account details and information about their creditworthiness. Customer data included names, identification numbers, addresses, phone numbers and, for some, the last four digits of credit card numbers.
The attacker was said to have broken into Courts’ network around Sept 21, 2022, through servers intended to keep its business running if its main systems failed.
Two of these disaster recovery servers were accessible over the internet. Investigations indicated that the attacker scanned for vulnerable network entry points and repeatedly attempted to gain access, before obtaining a system administrator’s login credentials through unknown means.
Connections between the disaster recovery servers…
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