Kevin BeaumontThe Times just filed a piece saying the #Capita outage is ongoing and hitting "every division" (only one source, not sure I buy it), with staff getting verbal 'round robin' updates. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2a6270b8-cfbd-11ed-9a00-73fd2b90e22e?shareToken=1df09835bc32a38e9b8ae2b0e7556097
Capita hit by IT breakdown amid fears of cyberattack
Capita, one of the UK’s biggest outsourcers, is investigating an incident with its IT systems which has prevented staff from logging in.Employees at the company, which handles important government contracts including for the NHS, have been denied access since before 7am.They have been told in round robin phone messages “not to attempt access via VPN or submit password recovery requests”.
The Times reporter is being verbally briefed as #Capita still don't have email (almost 10 hours in).
They're told: 'There appears to be no risk to personal data processed by the business. The outage seems to be is hitting Office365 programmes including Outlook, Excel and Teams rather than client systems...'
Financial Times have a new article up about #Capita, saying two people familiar with the matter say cyber incident cannot be ruled out.
Curiously all the media articles about it this evening talk about the IT incident in the past tense - but it is still ongoing, it hasn't been resolved.
https://www.ft.com/content/00f9591f-e07a-4339-ba3e-413818602515
Verbal update from #Capita - they’re still restoring internal service, “there is no evidence that any data has been compromised."
They won’t discuss what is happening.
#Capita has been in contact with people at the NCSC and NCA. Interesting an IT supplier would rather talk about a 3 day ongoing IT incident than mention the cyber word.
Latest statement from #Capita - 3 days in they have restored their Office 365 access, and are now trying to restore their customer’s services. “Working in collaboration with our specialist technical partners, we have restored Capita colleague access to Microsoft Office 365 and we are making good progress restoring remaining client services in a secure and controlled manner.”
The Times have a report up saying #Capita NHS services staff are working using WhatsApp and Google Drive, rather than approved Microsoft tooling.
Massively concerned by lack of transparency, going to start digging into this tomorrow with officials. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/capita-dogged-by-it-problem-for-three-days-wthl2zp5v
#Capita finally admit they have a cybersecurity incident. No details about what is happening, it’s a regulatory notification. They had been privately briefing customers it wasn’t security related. https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/CPI/statement-re-cyber-incident/15901425
I am told various UK regulatory authorities are beginning to look into what has happened at #Capita as there is varying degrees of concern about different elements, e.g. disclosure to customers and ongoing data access.
#Capita have changed their website frontpage to be a response to the cyber incident.
#Capita are listed on Black Basta ransomware portal as a victim.
They posted various screenshots of access to personal data (e.g. passport scans), security vetting, nuclear BACS payment details, architecture diagrams, school reports etc - Capita customer data.
http://stniiomyjliimcgkvdszvgen3eaaoz55hreqqx6o77yvmpwt7gklffqd.onion/?id=CAPITA
#Capita's breach is also being sold on the portal, you can pay cryptocurrency for "Remote exclusive server with data of "CAPITA""
Black Basta focus on data exfiltration, traditionally using rclone. Prior reading: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/black-basta-threat-profile.pdf
I took a look at Capita’s ransomware incident, and look at what they’ve told the media and customers versus the reality of what has happened.
Black Basta ransomware group extorts Capita with stolen customer data, Capita fumble response.
Black Basta ransomware group extorts Capita with stolen customer data, Capita fumble response.
There’s an interesting piece in The Times today, where the CEO of Capita declares Capita’s response to the hack “will go down as a case history for how to deal with a sophisticated cyberattack”…
The Times website has a report this evening about the Black Basta breach of Capita. Capita still deny there is any evidence of data being compromised.. in a story that even includes details of Capita’s office floor plans leaking. #ransomware
#Capita are apparently now known as the "BBC license fee firm"... which might explain why BBC News haven't even mentioned the initial outage I guess. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-16/data-feared-stolen-at-bbc-licence-fee-firm-amid-hack-telegraph
The Record reports #Capita is "...understood to be working to establish whether the data is authentic or if the extortion group had cobbled it together from other sources."
Maybe the source is cobbled together from Capita Business Services... or Capita Nuclear. Or one of the other Capita business units in the #BlackBasta portal. https://therecord.media/capita-investigates-authenticity-data-leak
Capita data breach has made BBC News. Capita still pretending it isn't happening.
After two weeks of telling press and customers privately my blog was inaccurate, suggesting the leaked data was public domain, denying it was ransomware etc.. #Capita have now admitted a data breach.
They’re still not giving full story or admitting Black Basta, more to come on how to defend your org.
Btw, Capita handle all security clearance - DV and SC - for sensitive jobs and data access. Not great they got owned by Russian hackers and then tried to ineptly cover it up.
I've written a post on the #Capita ransomware breach, which potentially has national security implications in the UK.
- Includes technical steps orgs can take to protect themselves from a similar situation
- A call to arms on a change in how organisations handle ransomware incidents, makes case for transparency
The ICO in the UK have issued a statement about #Capita incident. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2023/04/ico-statement-on-capita-incident/
It's a month since Russian hackers first got into #Capita, on March 22nd.
Black Basta also list Capita as CAPITA_2, just noticed - two listings.
Really interesting piece in The Times, where Capita claim that they informed clients they were hacked at 11am on Friday 31st March (the first day) and kept them briefed.
Anybody agree or disagree this was true? https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/silence-is-deafening-after-cyberattack-on-capita-dgns935gz
Silence is deafening after cyberattack on Capita
Error messages flashed up as staff at Capita tried to log into their accounts on Friday, March 31. Frustrated workers were advised not to submit password reset requests to swamped technology teams as the outsourcer got to grips with what was going on. In a preliminary statement that morning, dictat
BBC report on the Pension Regulator concerns about the data breach at #Capita.
Capita administer pensions for around 4 million people. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65443841
The FT also have a story on it, where Capita refuse to confirm or deny the Black Basta thing. Super crazy as they definitely know what happened. https://www.ft.com/content/c4383788-e27b-48ea-bd72-044c01841926
#Capita were still listed unindexed on Black Basta's portal, so I entered a chat and asked Black Basta if they hacked Capita.
Black Basta erased the chat history, and removed CAPITA and CAPITA_2 from their portal just now. Previously, Capita declined to comment about communicating with Black Basta to @BleepingComputer
The Financial Conduct Authority has written to Capita’s customers, reminding them of their responsibilities when it comes to data breach at Capita. https://www.ft.com/content/9a6c1e80-6302-4749-8841-3c5971d5d1cd
Financial Times reports that pension data has been exfiltrated from Capita’s customers, and that the ICO says they have received “other breach reports believed to be in connection with the Capita incident” from Capita’s customers. https://www.ft.com/content/baa794ff-90dc-4d6c-a930-64dae7391940
The Sunday Times newspaper has a big feature about ransomware today, featuring me, @ciaranmartin, @brett
I just want to call out this bit about Capita and say their failure to acknowledge the fact they lost security vetting data impacts real people, at a scale way bigger than one person - I think it is ethically poor that Capita just deny stuff that matters.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-hackers-are-recruiting-on-the-dark-web-mpl2hvsss
#Capita have issued a market update and confirmed data exfiltration. They wordsmith it to be data exfil from 0.1% of their server estate, rather than data volume or what was taken. They also use the cyberattack update to boast revenue wins.
However, the company could use the cyber attack to its advantage, he added.
“If Capita is smart it’ll come out of this saying we’ve more experience of handling this than anybody else, you should be using us, because we know what we’re doing and we employ leading experts in this field,” Rawlinson said.
Lmao, that’s one take.
https://www.ft.com/content/20aa4844-2ebe-44dc-9550-7d950150e784
Friday evening news drop: USS lecturers’ pension fund may have had their personal details stolen during the recent cyberattack on the outsourcing firm #Capita. https://www.uss.co.uk/news-and-views/latest-news/2023/05/05122023_important-information-about-capitas-cyber-incident
Important information about Capita’s cyber incident
Capita recently reported a cyber incident involving hackers targeting some of its computer servers – potentially impacting several of the cross-sector businesses it serves. We use Capita’s technology platform (Hartlink) to support our in-house pension administration processes and have been liaising closely with the company over the course of its forensic investigations.
By ‘may have been exfiltrated’ in that scenario, Capita mean ‘the attacker definitely rcloned the entire server to a VPS provider’, just FYI to pension companies.
The Telegraph reporting that, aside from USS, around 350 other pension providers are impacted by hack of Capita, with millions of pension holders requiring notification - they call it the largest hack in British history. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/05/12/capita-hackers-steal-personal-data-350-funds-hack/
One month ago Capita’s CEO claimed their response to the attack would “go down as a case history for how to deal with a sophisticated cyber attack” - while denying any data exfiltration, and blaming the incident on a single staff member clicking a link (that bit was behind a Times paywall).
I suspect Capita’s board should be asking if somebody opening a file is the real cause of the issue - or if it’s a cascading failure to manage properly and transparently from the top down.
USS have today started notifying just under half a million people that #Capita lost their data to Black Basta. USS didn’t include nation insurance numbers taken.. which enables fraud.
Due to legal requirements in the UK, every pension holder in every impacted pension scheme will need to be notified individually - according to media reports, this is up to 350 pension schemes. So this may become the biggest data breach disclosure ever in the UK.
I haven’t pressed publish on this yet, partly as I want to see what Capita disclose. It’s not just pensions.
Colchester City Council has been informed they have a data breach by #Capita. Capita are telling them the data has now been “secured”. Colchester City Council say they have “extreme disappointment with Capita”. https://www.colchester.gov.uk/info/cbc-article/?id=KA-04376
Update: it turns out this was related to the S3 bucket incident.
Jayne 
🇪🇺🏳️🌈Perhaps it's finally time to insource rather than outsource 🤔