Imagine this: you’re a hugely successful healthcare solutions provider, with operations in 32 countries and a revenue of over $12 billion in 2022. You’ve earned your place as a Fortune 500 company. But then, out of nowhere, you’re hit by not one, but two cyberattacks in a row. Sounds like a nightmare, right? Well, that’s precisely what happened to Henry Schein in 2023.

The Double Whammy of Cyberattacks

On October 15, 2023, Henry Schein was forced to take some systems offline due to a cyberattack that impacted their manufacturing and distribution operations. The culprits? The notorious BlackCat Ransomware gang, who claimed responsibility and boasted about stealing 35 TB of sensitive files.

But the trouble didn’t end there. On November 22, the company disclosed that they were hit by the same gang yet again. This time, the ransomware gang encrypted Henry Schein’s network after negotiations failed and even threatened a third attack if a ransom was not paid.

While it’s unclear if the attackers followed through with their threats, they did release some of the stolen data on their leak site.

The Aftermath: Over 160,000 People Affected

Fast forward to over a year later, and Henry Schein has finally confirmed the extent of the damage. In a data breach notification to the Maine Attorney General, the company revealed that the ransomware gang managed to steal the personal data of 166,432 people during these attacks.

It took a considerable amount of time and resources to review the affected files and identify the information that was obtained by the unauthorized third party. The investigation determined that personal information, along with other sensitive data, was impacted during the incident.

We reached out to Henry Schein to ask about the type of data stolen but did not receive a response. However, the company is now offering impacted users a free 24-month membership to Experian’s IdentityWorksSM to help monitor their credit history and detect signs of fraud.

What Can You Learn from This?

As a US reader, you might be thinking, “Why should I care about a healthcare solutions provider halfway across the world?” Well, the truth is, cyberattacks can happen to anyone, anywhere. And as we’ve seen with Henry Schein, even the biggest and most successful companies aren’t immune.

So, what can you do to protect yourself and your business? The best way is to stay informed and be proactive about your cybersecurity practices. That’s where we come in. Our IT Services team is dedicated to helping you stay ahead of the curve and ensure that you’re well-equipped to handle any cyber threats that come your way.

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Contact us today to learn more about our cybersecurity services and how we can help you safeguard your valuable data. And remember, keep coming back to stay informed and up-to-date on the latest cybersecurity news and trends.

A Wake-Up Call from a Massive Data Breach

Imagine the shock and fear when you learn that your personal information has been compromised in a cyberattack. For over 800,000 people, this nightmare became a reality when insurance administrative services company Landmark Admin fell victim to a data breach in May.

Who is Landmark Admin and Why Does it Matter?

Landmark Admin is a third-party administrator for insurance companies, providing essential back-office services like new business processing and claims administration for major insurance carriers. Some of these carriers include American Monumental Life Insurance Company, Pellerin Life Insurance Company, American Benefit Life Insurance Company, Liberty Bankers Life Insurance Company, Continental Mutual Insurance Company, and Capitol Life Insurance Company.

What Happened During the Cyberattack?

According to a filing with the Main Attorney General’s office, Landmark detected suspicious activity on May 13th, prompting the company to shut down its IT systems and remote access to its network to prevent the spread of the attack. They then enlisted the help of a third-party cybersecurity company to address the incident and investigate whether any data was stolen.

What Did the Investigation Discover?

During the investigation, Landmark found evidence that the attacker accessed files containing the personal information of 806,519 people. The affected individuals’ data included first and last names, addresses, Social Security numbers, tax identification numbers, driver’s license numbers, passport numbers, financial account numbers, medical information, dates of birth, health insurance policy numbers, and life and annuity policy information.

Landmark is notifying affected individuals by mail and will continue to update them as the investigation progresses. However, at this time, no threat actors have claimed responsibility for the attack, leaving the true nature of the incident—whether ransomware or data theft—unknown.

What Should Impacted Individuals Do Now?

Due to the sensitive nature of the stolen data, it’s crucial for impacted people to keep a close eye on their credit reports and bank accounts for any suspicious activity. The breach serves as a stark reminder of the importance of cybersecurity and the need to protect our personal information.

Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late

Don’t let this story become your reality. Be proactive in safeguarding your personal and business data by contacting us to learn more about how we can help you stay one step ahead of cyber threats. By working together, we can ensure that your information remains secure and out of the wrong hands.

Here’s a story that may raise some concern: the Internet Archive was breached again. This time, the attack targeted their Zendesk email support platform, after they had been warned about stolen GitLab authentication tokens.

Imagine our surprise when we received numerous messages from people who got replies to their old Internet Archive removal requests, warning that the organization had been breached because they didn’t properly rotate their stolen authentication tokens.

As one email from the threat actor stated, “It’s dispiriting to see that even after being made aware of the breach weeks ago, IA has still not done the due diligence of rotating many of the API keys that were exposed in their gitlab secrets.”

Anyone seeking information or requesting the removal of their site from the Wayback Machine may have had their data fall into the hands of this random guy. And if it wasn’t this person, it could have been someone else.

What’s more, the email headers in these messages passed all DKIM, DMARC, and SPF authentication checks, proving they were sent by an authorized Zendesk server.

The troubling part is that a recipient of these emails shared with us that they had to upload personal identification when requesting a removal of a page from the Wayback Machine. The threat actor may now also have access to these attachments, depending on the API access they had to Zendesk and if they used it to download support tickets.

This incident follows our repeated attempts to warn the Internet Archive that their source code had been stolen due to a GitLab authentication token being exposed online for almost two years.

Exposed GitLab authentication tokens

On October 9th, we reported that the Internet Archive was hit by two different attacks simultaneously: a data breach where user data for 33 million users was stolen and a DDoS attack by an alleged pro-Palestinian group named SN_BlackMeta.

While both attacks occurred over the same period, they were conducted by different threat actors. However, many outlets incorrectly reported that SN_BlackMeta was behind the breach rather than just the DDoS attacks.

This misreporting frustrated the threat actor behind the actual data breach, who contacted us through an intermediary to claim credit for the attack and explain how they breached the Internet Archive.

According to the threat actor, the initial breach started with them finding an exposed GitLab configuration file on one of the organization’s development servers. We were able to confirm that this token had been exposed since at least December 2022, with it rotating multiple times since then.

The threat actor says this GitLab configuration file contained an authentication token allowing them to download the Internet Archive source code, which in turn contained additional credentials and authentication tokens. This enabled the threat actor to download the organization’s user database, further source code, and modify the site.

The threat actor claimed to have stolen 7TB of data but would not share any samples as proof. However, we now know that the stolen data also included the API access tokens for the Internet Archive’s Zendesk support system.

We tried to contact the Internet Archive numerous times, offering to share what we knew about the breach and its reasons, but we never received a response.

Breached for cyber street cred

After the Internet Archive was breached, conspiracy theories abounded about the reasons behind the attack. Some people believed it was Israel, the United States government, or corporations battling the Internet Archive over copyright infringement.

However, the Internet Archive was not breached for political or monetary gain – it was simply because the threat actor could.

There is a large community of people who traffic in stolen data, whether for money by extorting the victim, selling it to other threat actors, or simply because they are collectors of data breaches.

These people often release data for free to gain cyber street cred, increasing their reputation among other threat actors as they compete for the most significant and most publicized attacks.

In the case of the Internet Archive, there was no money to be made by trying to extort the organization. However, as a well-known and extremely popular website, it definitely boosted the attacker’s reputation among this community.

While no one has publicly claimed this breach, we were told it was done while the threat actor was in a group chat with others, and many received some of the stolen data. This database is now likely being traded among other people in the data breach community, and we may see it leaked for free on hacking forums in the future.

Update 10/20/24: Added information about how some people had to upload personal IDs when requesting removal from the Internet Archive.