CommScope employees say they haven’t heard from executives in more than a week about how the company is responding to a ransomware attack, which allowed hackers to steal vast amounts of corporate and employee data from its systems.
The tech giant, which designs and builds network infrastructure products for businesses, hospitals, schools and federal networks, recently admitted that he was attacked by ransomware on March 27 after some of the company’s stolen files subsequently surfaced online.
A ransomware gang known as the Vice Society claimed responsibility for the attack by posting the company’s stolen data on its dark web leak site, which it uses to extort money from victims. threatening to publish internal files if a ransom demand is not paid.
The stolen data contains troves of internal documents, technical drawings, internal corporate databases, invoices, and corporate expenses. Some of the data also includes personal information of employees.
Several CommScope employees told TechCrunch that their last communication from executives about the cyberattack was on April 18, saying the company “continued to work expeditiously to review and validate the data claimed to have been posted to the web.” dark”.
“We believe that the data of the employees involved in this incident would have been inadvertently stored outside of our cloud-based human resources information systems,” CommScope General Counsel Justin Choi told employees in a statement. email.
An email sent to employees a day earlier said the company said it has “no evidence” to suggest employee data was involved.
TechCrunch has seen files containing personal data on thousands of people who are, or once were, CommScope employees. The files include addresses, Social Security numbers and bank account information. Some of the files are dated, as they were created by an employee who no longer works at CommScope. Another file contains a list of thousands of former employees, their names, addresses and Social Security numbers. The latest data includes a folder containing scans of current passports and immigration visas for some employees, including one belonging to a child.
When contacted for comment, CommScope declined to say how many people it has notified of the breach so far.
“CommScope continues to work expeditiously on its investigation to review the affected data. We are moving as quickly as possible, however these types of data reviews take time and we want to be accurate and complete in our notifications to affected individuals. We continue to maintain direct communication with our employees, as appropriate, as we have throughout this incident,” said Cheryl Przychodni, a CommScope spokeswoman.
Employees tell TechCrunch that the ransomware attack caused several days of widespread outage across the company, including production at the plant, where the company makes some of its products.
An employee said he saw a ransom note on his work computer, which read: “All your files have been encrypted by the Vice Society.” The ransom note includes links to the Vice Society’s dark web leak site containing the company’s stolen files and various email addresses used by the gang to negotiate ransom with victims.
When contacted by email, the hacking group told TechCrunch: “Where did you get this email from?”
It is not clear if CommScope paid a ransom.
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