Co-op Group have now admitted a significant amount of member (customer) information has been stolen by DragonForce Ransomware Cartel, saying they "accessed data relating to a significant number of our current and past members" - around 20 million people. The Member database, basically.
Up until now Co-op hadn't even used the words cyber or threat actor, referring to an "IT issue" and "third party" in comms.
Regarding IOCs around the UK retailer activity - there’s loads doing the rounds, and they’re almost all not useful.
Eg hundreds of dynamic VPN IPs from 2022. If you google them you’ll find them on vendor blogs from years ago for Scattered Spider - people are recycling in panic and passing around in panic.
Don’t hunt on random IOCs. IP addresses change. Strengthen foundational controls. Review sign in logs for abnormal activity etc.
@GossiTheDog for someone who is unfamiliar with the UK retail market, do you happen to know if Co-op is at all related to the Swedish company Coop that suffered from a major ransomware attack a couple of years ago?
Rebuilding business is prioritised by importance. If the online shop is a small side hustle compared to the brick&mortar ones (or is much slower), then it’s lower priority.
Communicating the current status and expected progress is better, builds trust.
Wages usually are handled as lump payment, i.e. the same sum as last mont - and corrected later when the HR systems are back online.
The incidence response team should cover IT forensics, BCM and communication.
@GossiTheDog@linuslagerhjelm and is this just the "main" (blue) Co-op, and not all the individual other things which use Co-op branding but are actually Central Co-op (yellow/green) round here but is somehow also part of (blue) Co-op?
As they all have disparate loyalty membership schemes so some people might be safer than others depending which one they use?
There's a report on ITV News that Co-op member data is available on the Dark Web(tm), but as far as I know this isn't accurate. DragonForce's portal hasn't been available for over a week.
Here's the ITV News report anyhoo, logline: "ITV News understands the the ongoing cyberattack faced by the supermarket has worsened since Friday, impacting the ordering system, drivers and warehouse staff."
@GossiTheDog I'm not sure people realise that "members" are mutual owners, but "customers" are anyone using co-op services, whether members or not. Not sure which are in the data breach - perhaps both? I think the members' db is probably separate.
@annehargreaves@GossiTheDog it's very unlikely they hold a database of customers that aren't members, as they don't do online ordering. If you get their loyalty card, you're a member.
Sunday Times has a piece looking into ransomware incident at Marks and Spencer. It's pretty good, goes into their contain and eradicate focus.
"By shutting down parts of the IT estate, Higham’s team had worked to prevent the attack from spreading, but had also stopped parts of its digital operations from functioning. This was considered a worthy trade-off."
One error in the article - lack of recovery doesn't mean no ransomware paid. Paying is not quick restoration.
@GossiTheDog "look for abnormal" ... Many IT teams can't define what's "normal" because they don't review their own logs. Expecting cybersecurity teams to spot abnormalities in that context is unrealistic. We need to stop pushing the message that monitoring is just the SOC’s job. Non-technical IT leaders see that messaging and shift responsibility wholly to the SOC who don’t understand the systems they're supposed to monitor.
@GossiTheDog TH, SOC, IR, TI, etc all are part of the infosec org, the actual IT systems & services are part of the IT org - this division in areas of responsibility & CxO level priorities is what drives time allocation for those two orgs (including time to partner).
@GossiTheDog I agree with most of your arguments. (In fact, the only one I take exception with is comparing ransomware with climate change. Ransomware is a much more real and urgent problem.) Those are pretty much arguments I've used myself when advising customers hit by ransomware not to pay.
But, ultimately, it's the company's decision. Even if the company makes the wrong decision, the government shouldn't be the one who decides for them.
@GossiTheDog@bontchev was going to post that link, I believe it too. I remember even years ago the Irish Health Service was given decryption keys and still struggled for months and months to recover data.
@GossiTheDog I caught a typo similar to ones I make, hope this helps. "Travelex aren’t alone. When I covered the Capita ransomware, they paid quietly paid" maybe delete one of the "paid"s
@GossiTheDog My thought after reading this is very old school. When the first indication appears, shut everything down. I have seen banks do this, and watched tellers calmly tell customers "I'm sorry, but the system is temporarily shut down" and start from there. If the breach is stopped quickly enough, you may have a chance. Also, what about off site storage, that would not be accessible to the attacker? Ultimately, the decision is a risk management decision, to evaluate as quickly as you can
Sky News quote a source in M&S head office saying Marks and Spencer have no ransomware incident plan so they are making it up as they go along apparently, with staff sleeping in the office and communicating via WhatsApp.
M&S dispute this, saying they have robust business continuity plans.
One of the points of exploitation of large orgs is they usually outsource their Service Desk to somewhere cheap offshore who don’t know the org staff, and when you call and say your name, they normally put big all caps bold red warning if the person is a VIP, eg C suite, so they get VIP service - ie anything goes.
Co-op Group appear to be trying to course correct with their cyber incident comms.
They’re calling it a cyber incident now, and have put a statement on the front page of their website, along with an FAQ. They haven’t yet emailed members (they should).
@piggo@GossiTheDog@WiteWulf it's basically just branding, java on smartcards is only superficially similar to regular java. really fundamental stuff is different. the security record of the smartcards is pretty good I think, but it's only as strong as the applet on the card
@GossiTheDog@WiteWulf I just used Apple Pay to buy lunch so no issues in mine. Apart from lack of decent choice of sandwiches. The shelves are pretty bare
@GossiTheDog well, it's not *entirely* separate. The POS kit sits on the same LAN as the PDQ (card reader device) to tell it the transaction amount, and for the PDQ to signal whether the transaction was succesful or not. The traffic between the PDQ and the card processing company is encrypted, obvs, and typically transits the same local network as all the other devices in-store, and then over the public internet.
One thing for media covering the Co-op thing - attackers are not impersonating IT help desks to gain access. They’re impersonating *staff* calling in to the IT help desks - they’re different things.
@GossiTheDog Ehm, they're doing both things. The easiest way to get physical access to most companies is to pretend being an employee of their it service contractor. They often just open all of the doors and show you the way right into the server room or ask you if they should log out before you take over (followed by if you'd like tea or coffee). At most what you as an attacker risk is getting also tasked with fixing the printer or copy machine "now that you're already here"...
@GossiTheDog well wouldn't be surprised if someone is just calling them pretending to be from their IT department and instructing them to grant them access.
@GossiTheDog the Co-op really do try to do the right thing. Glad I'm not working in Co-op Food IS any more but their social mission is pretty darn solid.
I just did a Shodan Safari on Co-op - basically all their Windows and Linux systems in their core DCs at network boundary are down, it's not just EDI. It's been like that for just under a week, prior to that things were still online.
I feel really bad for them as it's a great org. Also their CEO is basically the only one who stood up like this for trans people.
If you're wondering about Marks and Spencer - I just did a Shodan Safari of their network boundary, Palo-Alto GlobalProtect VPN remote access access is still offline, 15 days later.
Online orders are still not working, and the store stock checker is disabled now.
For anybody wondering what 'dial into the incident response bridge' means, it means they'll literally Teams call into cyber IR bridges as themselves and just extort you to your face. They'll also call CISOs etc. Bad Times at the El Royale.
Co-op Group have provided some more detail about what it’s doing about remote lifeline stores (ones where they’re the main/only retailer on an island):
“From Monday, 12 of the most remote lifeline stores will receive treble the volume of available product, and another 20 lifeline stores will get double the volume.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c071e7x80djo
I think Co-op may have stopped recruitment too, they’re a big employer so usually have hundreds of open positions - currently they have 17, and most close today and the rest in a few days.
Co-op stores in Sheffield, Badenoch, Dunfermline and many other places are apparently running out of produce - it's not possible to keep up with the local media reports but they're basically bored reporters get sent out to photograph half empty fridges.
They also have a report today saying Co-op stores are restocked, which is also not accurate - that one is sourced from Co-op, but obviously doesn’t stack up to looking in Co-op stores.
If anybody is wondering, all of Marks and Spencer's Palo-Alto GlobalProtect VPN boxes are still offline, 3 weeks later. Pretty good containment method to keep attackers out.
M&S confirm my toot from 3 days ago that a significant amount of customer and staff data was stolen. They’ve known for weeks but opted not to tell anybody. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62v34zv828o
@greem@GossiTheDog meanwhile, Co-Op are still sending me emails apologising for the lack of products on shelves, with no almost no mention of data loss/appropriation
@GossiTheDog@WiteWulf@greem the emails I’ve had about it are from Central Co-op specifically, “the green one”. Nothing from Co-op “the blue one”. Given your location you probably don’t have a Central Co-op membership?
edit - which makes sense actually given your earlier context; Central Co-op may not have been breached directly so no data loss, but they do depend on the (breached) larger Co-op Group for logistics?
@GossiTheDog@WiteWulf@greem sorry, yes, what I'm trying to say is that Co-op Group may not be sending any emails as I haven't had any either. The only emails I have had are from Central Co-op, which (as Gary said) do not refer to data loss, only stock availability.
One of the mails says:
> There is no evidence that Central Co-op systems have been impacted and as a Society, we’re ever vigilant, maintaining a robust stance on cyber security
As I've said before, the branding is confusing to me
@GossiTheDog I am associated with a cybersecurity service, and had the idea of you reviewing the product, I found you on medium. Infact we have worked on something that I would love to share with you, if you can share some contact.
Co-op's AGM is this weekend, and M&S yearly results and investor contact are next week.
Gonna be awkward for different reasons, e.g. Co-op is member (customer) owned, so the people's data Co-op had stolen are effectively the shareholders and are invited.
The Channel Islands Coop, which is different to Co-op Group, has been able to restock shelves by moving away from Co-op Group for supply distribution and moving to local suppliers. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3d4xvg3x1do
The Grocer reports Nisa and Costcutter are running out of fruit & veg, fresh meat and poultry, dairy products, chilled ready meals, snacks and desserts.
Nisa and Costcutter are supplied by Co-op Wholesale, which is dependent on Co-op Group.
“It’s really poor. I feel bad for them but what makes it worse is their hush-hush mentality about it. There’s no proper level of communication and we get random updates.”
Co-op Group have told their suppliers that "systemic-based orders will resume for ambient, fresh, and frozen products commencing Wednesday 14 May". They say forecasting system will still be impacted.
If you want figures for your board to set expectations in big game ransomware incidents, Co-op containment just over 2 weeks, M&S just over 3 weeks so far - recovery comes after.
The threat actor at Co-op says Co-op shut systems down, which appears to have really pissed off the threat actor. This was the right, and smart, thing to do.
While I was at Co-op we did a rehearsal of ransomware deployment on point of sale devices with the retail team, and the outcome was a business ending event due to the inability to take payments for a prolonged period of time. So early intervention with containment was the right thing to do, 100%.
The link in the article to Vectra Cognito AI has a Coop Sweden logo on it, and the Coop Sweden CISO is named. Coop Sweden is different company. Coop Sweden went on to have a ransomware attack that crippled the org, including point of sale, so I don't think it's a good sales point. Same with Silverfort.
Google AI has ingested the article and now uses it to claim Co-op Group use the tools.
The Times reports M&S were breached through a contractor and that human error is to blame. (Both M&S and Co-op use TCS for their IT Service Desk).
The threat actor went undetected for 52 hours. (I suspect detection was when their ESXi cluster got encrypted).
M&S have told the Times they had no “direct” communication with DragonForce, which is code for they’re using a third party to negotiate - standard practice.
@GossiTheDog I have memories of those exercises 😅 (particularly logistics chiming in with 'erm, we'd need to kill all supplier orders asap' and the room going quiet 😳) Just glad some of the lessons sank in....
M&S looks to be moving to reposition their incident as a third party failure, which I imagine will help redirect some of the blame (they present their financial results during the week to investors): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpqe213vw3po
Both M&S and Co-op outsourced their IT, including their Service Desk (helpdesk), to TCS (Tata) around 2018, as part of cost savings.
There's nothing to suggest TCS itself have a breach btw.
Basically, if you go for the lowest cost helpdesk - you might want to follow the NCSC advice on authenticating password and MFA token resets.
I've put a 3 part deep dive blog series coming out probably next week called Living-Off-The-Company, which is about how teenagers have realised large orgs have outsourced to MSPs who follow the same format of SOP documentation, use of cloud services etc. Orgs have introduced commonality to surf.
"Cyber analysts and retail executives said the company had been the victim of a ransomware attack, had refused to pay - following government advice - and was working to reinstall all of its computer systems."
Not sure who those analysts are, but since DragonForce haven't released any data and M&S won't comment other than to say they haven't had any "direct" contact with DragonForce, I wouldn't make that assumption.
There's also a line in the article from an cyber industry person saying "if it can happen to M&S, it can happen to anyone" - it's ridiculous and defeatist given Marks and Spencer haven't shared any technical information about how it happened, other than to tell The Sunday Times it was "human error"
The Air Safety version of cyber industry would be a plane crashing into 14 other planes, and industry air safety people going "Gosh, if that can happen to British Airways it could happen to anybody!"
I made this point a few weeks ago, but... outsourcing all your IT, Networks, Service Desk (helpdesk) and operational cybersecurity is a temporary cost saving and basically paints a ticking timebomb on the org, IMHO.
The NCA has confirmed on the record that the investigation into the M&S and Co-op hack is focused on English teenagers. I could toot the names of the people I think they’ll pick up, but won’t.
TCS has a security incident running around the M&S breach.
Interestingly the source claims TCS aren't involved in Co-op's IT - which is categorically false, they took over most of it while I worked there, including the helpdesk and SecOps.
@GossiTheDog e-paper price labels are apparently extremely common in mainland Europe. The UK is extremely slow to adopt things like this.
*In theory*, during an incident, the labels would remain as-is until they receive a new price. So TAs would specifically need to target the pricing database prior to wiping.