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.

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 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.

#threatintel

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.

https://doublepulsar.com/black-basta-ransomware-group-extorts-capita-with-stolen-customer-data-capita-fumble-response-9c3ca6c3b283

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

https://t.co/3gSWyKp3bE

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

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.

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

https://doublepulsar.com/russian-hackers-exfiltrated-data-from-capita-over-a-week-before-outage-b67453e0bd59

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

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

#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 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

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

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.

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.

Btw, if anybody wonders if I’m human and feel sorry for the Capita cybersecurity staff dealing with this - absolutely. I feel awful for them. I’ve always said the technical containment and investigation sounds good.

I suspect there have been people there tearing their hair out. I doubt the decisions to pretend leaked data was public domain, not admit ransomware, say 0.1% of server estate etc came from the immediate responding teams.