Kevin BeaumontThe 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.
Interesting detail in the Colchester piece about #Capita - as far as I know, no other local authorities have yet told the ICO, which they are supposed to do within 72 hours.
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.
Diageo pension fund says their data has been compromised in #Capita breach.
“During the course of April, Capita informed us that they had taken steps to isolate and contain the incident whilst they continued to investigate it. However, on 3 May, Capita told us that it is likely a file containing your data had been compromised.”
The Financial Times reports #Capita are saying it will take them through to the end of May to notify pension funds about breached data - over 2 months since the hack began. https://www.ft.com/content/39b71f11-6628-476f-9876-59697be25fb9
More from FT on the #Capita Black Basta ransomware fall out, questions how much insurance will cover. https://www.ft.com/content/ff150b65-8dc6-48c8-b2e4-6b8fbee4ea03
Lots of new details in Times piece about the cybersecurity woes engulfing Capita. Features my Mastodon thread about the files on #Capita’s own website.
New victims include staff at PWC, Unilever and The Cabinet Office. 11 councils are also investigating the open bucket issue.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0513205a-f718-11ed-a712-8f47f8e830cf?shareToken=e595f233220e2a4532500771d0175ea9
Non-paywall version if you hit it: https://archive.ph/2023.05.20-234130/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/capita-under-fire-after-confidential-files-published-online-7cjh2jj59
UK’s largest pension insurer, Rothesay, has been caught in #Capita breach https://www.rothesay.com/news/newsroom/statement-on-capita-s-cyber-incident/
If you’re wondering why specifically pension companies are disclosing, the Pension Regulator has reminded both them and Capita that there are clear and enforceable legal obligations for pensions.
The #Capita breach involves other data, including UK gov data, which has not been disclosed.
USS customer notification about Capita breach is categorical that pension data was exfiltrated - previous language was around data potentially being accessed https://infosec.exchange/@spzb/110414033883093993
Simon Briggs (@[email protected])
Attached: 2 images Email just received from #USS about #Capita data breach. Fyi @[email protected]
USS pension update is on their website now. Pension data was definitely stolen via #Capita. https://www.uss.co.uk/news-and-views/latest-news/2023/05/05252023_important-update-on-capitas-cyber-incident
The ICO issued an update on #Capita just now, acknowledging the ransomware incident and the open bucket incident.
The BBC report nearly a hundred companies have contacted the ICO so far about #Capita. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65746518
What Security Watchdog (owned by #Capita - they're currently mid sale to another company) do. I may have added the final line.
NHS England say they had data breach via #Capita of medical records of two active patients and two deceased patients https://www.england.nhs.uk/2023/06/nhs-england-statement-on-capita-cyber-incident/
Several months later, #Capita have told teachers in Sheffield they may have had a “potential” data breach. https://www.thestar.co.uk/taxonomy/term/2438/taxonomy/term/164/warning-as-sheffield-schools-hit-by-data-leak-after-hackers-target-capita-4177037
Long time readers of this very thread may remember I pointed out the Sheffield teacher breach over 2 months ago. https://doublepulsar.com/black-basta-ransomware-group-extorts-capita-with-stolen-customer-data-capita-fumble-response-9c3ca6c3b283
Legal proceedings initiated against Capita over data breach. https://www.professionalpensions.com/news/4117931/legal-proceedings-initiated-capita-breach
Miners Pension Fund members have data stolen in #Capita hack - members informed almost 3 months later. https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/23605752.miners-pension-fund-members-data-stolen-capital-hack/
Remember the #Capita Black Basta ransomware incident from March? It’s still playing out months later - one of the orgs say “We remain concerned at the level of information provided to USS by Capita”
https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/13020/Update-on-USS-Capita-data-breach
Four months in, Capita have finally admitted to its own staff that their data was taken.
Auditors PWC are amongst the many other victims. They say Capita have been unable to provide “final, complete and accurate” information.
In other news, Capita and PWC have just won the contract to provide the UK’s cyber incident reporting platform. https://www.ft.com/content/52130b83-6ad7-474c-aaf7-88a549dc85e3
The Times reports #Capita staff saying Capita “played down” the ransomware/extortion during internal meetings and reported that executives said that “attacks happened to all organisations” and “it is just a small breach”. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/capita-admits-hackers-also-stole-staffs-personal-details-jjkw3r7rs
Capita’s CEO has announced he is retiring. Capita say he had stayed on to deal with the ransomware/extortion incident.
The Times ran the headline “Capita boss heads for exit with turnaround finished” attached to a puff piece, so I just checked on how #Capita are doing. Good that the turnaround is finished. A story in 4 pictures.
In #Capita’s financial results they say “minimal impact from cyber incident”, in a call with investors they described it as a non-event.
Good luck to Capita’s clients. 🫡
Capita's share price is down 18% today. Or as Capita call it, 0.1% effected by a Happy Little Non-Event.
Just over 2000 people are taking legal action against #Capita, including some of its own employees.
Note this report contains factual inaccuracies as it relies on Capita’s version of events.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/13/capita_class_action_2000_claimants/
30k school pupil records were exfiltrated as part of the Capita hack, but the Department of Education doesn’t appear to have told parents. https://schoolsweek.co.uk/hackers-steal-pupils-details-from-capita/
4000% increase in pension scheme breaches reported to the ICO in the UK this year.
Capita never disclosed the number of pension schemes impacted their end but I’ve heard it was… a lot.
https://www.pensionsage.com/pa/UK-pension-schemes-record-4000-pc-rise-in-cyber-security-breaches.php
Just over 5k people are suing Capita at the High Court over their ransomware data breach. Discovery on this one should be incredible.
Capita are saying, regarding their court case, that there is no evidence that data stolen was publicly available. They may want to tell the people who were directly impacted. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-hackers-are-recruiting-on-the-dark-web-mpl2hvsss
It’s been almost a year since the #Capita ransomware incident began. Here’s how the new CEO describes it in their yearly update.
There’s now some careful rewording around data exfiltration and “recovery activities” of said data.
The exact amount they book for incident response and recovery is £25.3m, and they do not mention if insurance will cover. Overall the business has booked a £106.6m loss for the year.
#Capita cut the pension business out of their operational KPIs, citing the impact of the ransomware incident.
#Capita’s new CEO has refused to say if they paid Black Basta ransomware group last year (they did). https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/capita-in-the-red-as-more-cuts-announced-mrs9gkx97
This thread is almost 1000 days old and getting a resurrection. #Capita have been fined £14m by the ICO over their ransomware incident.
Lots of big details in the fine, including over 1tb of data stolen (as detailed in this Mastodon thread at the time), confirmation of Qakbot and my blog etc.
Their SOC was wildly understaffed. It took attacker 4 hours to get domain admin due to poor security practices. Lots of learnings for large orgs.
Zack Whittaker@GossiTheDog bizarre to me that the reporter didn't cite the ransomware payment as something to ask the CEO on the record if they dispute. you can't dispute something that happened.
I love this, so I@GossiTheDog let’s see what happens in a couple of days. Good start that The Line is starting to notice atrocious IT security
Matt Nordhoff@GossiTheDog I scrolled up in this thread and it's not even the first time Capita's stock has been down 18% in a day...
Kevin Beaumont (@[email protected])
Capita's share price is down 18% today. Or as Capita call it, 0.1% effected by a Happy Little Non-Event.
Deejacker@GossiTheDog Unfortunately the investors are probably quite used to this type of dive, certainly tanked several times since I worked there.
Jez Caudle 
@GossiTheDog Crapita - what Private Eye call it. To the point that I know read it as that.
╰•★★PuertoRicanMami ★★•╯
piofthings@GossiTheDog they were not only exfiltrated, data was destroyed and not recovered properly. I had an account in my council site. It no longer works, it doesn’t send me password reset emails and it refuses to sign me or my wife up again! Capita are as incompetent as they come!
Cali@GossiTheDog I found out this week that if you click reader mode on paywalled articles = no paywall
Gary Parker@GossiTheDog “contains factual inaccuracies as it relies on Capita’s version of events”
@GossiTheDog Their offer of a year's 'Free' access to Experian credit monitoring for those affected does not feel like an adequate response to anyone who has looked up Experian's history of data breaches.
Alan Miller 
🇺🇦@GossiTheDog to be fair, that drop is small potatoes if it's only 17% of what's left after their previous 80% decline.
Steve Scott@GossiTheDog Means the fines aren't big enough.
@GossiTheDog Or perhaps a better way of putting it is "We've managed to socialise the costs of the resulting identify theft which are a direct result of our negligence, and therefore there minimal financial impact to our results"
Paul Bailey@GossiTheDog Be fair, it doesn’t specify the direction of the turnaround.
Grumble@GossiTheDog Maybe the turnaround was his private bank account?
altreus™@GossiTheDog That reads like a Friday cryptic clue.
I think it might be CURFEW but I can't justify the UR, nor does it really mean "finished"
Fritz Adalis@GossiTheDog
The company did a 360
The company did a 360
Bob Thomson@GossiTheDog "Failure is not an option", because those failing upwards never fail, they just pocket their proceeds and move along.
@GossiTheDog “£0.1 million in profit”…. so a paltry 100k? #spindoctorsgottaspin
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial@GossiTheDog I believe this is referred to as "fuck this shit I'm out"
Chris@GossiTheDog I always had the impression about Lewis, that he thought he could turn around Capita quickly and make his fortune but it was fucked up way more than he could ever have known.
Simon 🐝 🫖@GossiTheDog does that mean the Capita shenanigans are all sorted and everyone's happy then?
@GossiTheDog I wonder what he's pay out will be??
Mike Spooner@GossiTheDog I suppose that is one way to learn otherwise. Slowly, late, and done the hard way. Perhaps like many other aspects of Capita's operations?
Dave Bartel@GossiTheDog They're also heavily involved in portions of the software used by various policing agencies in the UK. Considering how sensitive some of the stuff they work on is, the fact that they still don't have a full grasp on how thorough the hack was and what was all exposed goes beyond concerning.
lp0 on fire 
Only one question: what else could possibly go wrong?
(No, I don't think that I want to know.)
JR@GossiTheDog At least they are English.
Advanced Persistent Teapot@GossiTheDog I think you're slightly misreading - two files containing records of patients, not two patients
Amy May 🏳️⚧️@GossiTheDog Are you sure it's only two deceased patients?
The wording on the statement you linked to mentions "two files containing names and NHS numbers of deceased & de-registered patients", which sounds to me like it could contain more than two deceased patients, and may even contain data about people who are still alive.