After plasma donation company, Octapharma Plasma, Inc., was forced to shut down over 150 of its centers late last week, a ransomware group has now come forward to claim the attack. BlackSuit has just posted the company to its data leak site, claiming to have stolen troves of data, including data of donors, laboratory data, employee data, and financial/business data.
In the latest update via its Facebook Page, Octapharma Plasma said many of its centers would continue to open with modified hours today (April 24). While it has only described the incident as ‘network issues’, the word ‘ransomware’ has been circulating since its announcement. BlackSuit was also mentioned prior to its claim to a source that spoke with The Register.
We have contacted Octapharma Plasma for more details and confirmation on the attack and will update the post if it responds.
Who is BlackSuit?
BlackSuit emerged around a year ago and, like most ransomware groups, will encrypt systems while also exfiltrating data, thereby operating a double-extortion model. Since then, we have tracked 19 confirmed ransomware attacks worldwide via BlackSuit. One of its biggest attacks was recently disclosed by Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin in which 533,809 people were affected. We have also logged 37 unconfirmed attacks by the group over the last year.
In this latest attack, BlackSuit claims to have stolen various sensitive data, including patients’ Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and addresses, as well as laboratory data, financial data, and employee data.
While we await further confirmation from Octapharma Plasma both patients and employees should be on the lookout for phishing emails and messages.
More About Octapharma Plasma, Inc.
Based in North Carolina, US, Octapharma Plasma, Inc. is one of the biggest human protein product manufacturers and is a subsidiary of Switzerland company, Octapharma AG. The organization creates medicines that are used to treat millions of people every year. It currently employes over 3,500 staff in the US.