More than 200 companies in the United States were knocked out of commission by a massive ransomware attack as both workers and customers geared up for the long Independence Day weekend.<\/b>
\nMore than 200 companies in the United States were knocked out of commission by a massive ransomware attack as both workers and customers geared up for the long Independence Day weekend. The REvil gang, a major Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate, appears to be behind the cyber strike, which initially targeted Florida-based company Kaseya and its VSA tool, a software used by several technology-service providers to manage and distribute software updates to systems on computer networks. John Hammond of the security firm Huntress Labs said the criminals relied on the network-management package as a conduit to spread the ransomware through other cloud-service providers. \u201cKaseya handles large enterprise all the way to small businesses globally, so ultimately, (this) has the potential to spread to any size or scale business,\u201d Hammond said. \u201cThis is a colossal and devastating supply chain attack.\u201d Kaseya in a statement on its website Friday said the attack was limited to a \u201csmall number\u201d of customers and urged clients to immediately shut down servers running on the impacted software. Because Kaseya customers manage an unspecified number of businesses, it is not clear how many will fall victim to ransomware in the coming days. According to Huntress, the number is already well into the 200s and is expected to increase over the weekend. Hammond said he was so far aware of four managed-services providers \u2014 companies that host IT infrastructure for multiple customers \u2014 being hit by the ransomware, which then encrypts networks until the victims pay off attackers. He estimated about a thousand computers have been hit so far. The group accused of perpetuating the recent cyber attack, REvil, develops the network-paralyzing software and leases it to so-called affiliates who infect targets and earn ransoms. It has been active since April 2019 and last month collected an $11 million payment from meat producer JBS SA With News Wire Services<\/p>\n