Report: CDK Paid $25M Ransom
Remember that CDK hack from last month?
Yeah, well, it appears the software company paid a $25M ransom to the hackers.
CNN reports that CDK, a firm that sells software that's used by car dealerships across the country, appears to have used cryptocurrency to pay the ransom demanded by the hackers.
The news org notes that it can be hard to track transactions using crypto, but a company that tracks crypto transactions found records of exchanges on the blockchain that would appear to indicate that CDK paid $25M to an account run by hackers. Those hackers work with a type of ransomware called BlackSuit.
The account that sent the cryptocurrency to the hacker-controlled account is linked to a company that helps the victims of ransomware attacks.
The dollar amount apparently hadn't been previously reported, though Bloomberg did report that the hackers had asked for a multi-million dollar ransom and CDK had said it would pay.
Hackers attacked CDK in mid-June. CDK's software is used by dealerships for a lot of different functions, such as fulfilling orders. As of last week, almost all of the 15,000 dealerships that use CDK software had recovered from the hack, at least according to CDK.
Generally speaking, companies take a stance of not paying ransoms, in order to try to discourage other hackers from future attempts. Sometimes, though, they pay up either to get their systems back or to prevent sensitive customer data from being spread further.
According to CNN, BlackSuit is a relatively new hacking group. It's seen success in hacking companies in the education and construction industries and appears to used ransomware that operates in a manner similar to other Russian-speaking cybercriminal outfits.
CDK did not respond to CNN's requests for comment.
[Image: Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock.com]
*Ed. note -- the lede to this piece initially referred to the hack as happening in July. It happened in June. We regret the error and the story has been updated.
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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