{"id":59785,"date":"2018-11-06T10:16:57","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T16:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/?p=59785"},"modified":"2018-11-06T10:16:57","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T16:16:57","slug":"ontario-suffers-cyber-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/ontario-suffers-cyber-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyber Attacks Strike the Public and Private Sectors of Ontario"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Ontario Suffers Ransomware Attacks from Unknown Variants<\/h4>\n<p>The last couple weeks have been rough for Ontario, leaving both the private and public sectors riddled with ransomware.\u00a0 First, on October 25th, cyber criminals attacked the Toronto company, ESC Corporate Services.\u00a0 ESC is an organization that resells sensitive personal and business data collected by the Ontario government.\u00a0 The hackers wormed their way into the system and installed an unknown ransomware variant.\u00a0 After successfully encrypting company files, they demanded their ransom.\u00a0 According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/canada\/2018\/11\/02\/ransomware-attack-hits-business-that-sells-ontario-residents-data.html\">The Star<\/a>, the ransom demands were not paid, and company systems remained down for a week.\u00a0 While systems were down, the\u00a0company reported an &#8220;outage&#8221; to anyone who attempted to visit its website.\u00a0 A week post-attack, notifications were displayed stating the &#8220;outage&#8221; had been resolved.<\/p>\n<p>ESC is conducting their own internal investigation and has yet to notify the authorities.\u00a0 At this time, the investigation has not confirmed if consumer data was viewed or taken from the network.\u00a0 The data in question includes corporate records, names and home addresses of directors, and the registration of auto, marine, and equipment liens.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the attack on ESC, another unknown ransomware variant infected the\u00a0West Nipissing Police, of Ontario.\u00a0 Due to the attack, police officials have issued warnings, asking people not to open emails or attachments that they don\u2019t recognize or trust.\u00a0 Thankfully, West Nipissing&#8217;s backup records were updated and were not impacted by the cyber attack.\u00a0 Therefore, the IT team was able to recover its data using backup files.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ontario Suffers Ransomware Attacks from Unknown Variants The last couple weeks have been rough for Ontario, leaving both the private and public sectors riddled with ransomware.\u00a0 First, on October 25th, cyber criminals attacked the Toronto company, ESC Corporate Services.\u00a0 ESC is an organization that resells sensitive personal and business data collected by the Ontario government.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":55145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4949,4944,5000],"tags":[4363,5112],"class_list":["post-59785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsletter","category-ransomware","category-ransomware-reports","category-ransomwarewar","tag-ransomware","tag-ransomware-attacks"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Cyber Attacks Strike the Public and Private Sectors of Ontario<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over the last few weeks, Ontario&#039;s public and private sector have been hit with ransomware attacks. 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