Olympus has been hit with another major cyberattack

Camera maker and Japanese tech giant Olympus was forced to shut down its IT systems in the US, Canada and Latin America after it recently fell victim to a cyberattack.

In a statement on its website, the company said that it is currently in the process of investigating a potential cybersecurity incident which occurred on October 10 that affected its IT systems.

After detecting suspicious activity on its network, Olympus mobilized a response team made up of forensic experts though it also suspended all of its affected systems to contain any potential threats. At the same time, the company is working with third parties as part of its investigation.

Olympus has confirmed though that this incident was contained to its IT systems in the US, Canada and Latin America and no other regions were impacted by the attack.

Repeat attack?

If this latest incident sounds at all familiar, that’s likely because Olympus suffered a similar cyberattack last month that affected its European, Middle East and Africa network.

At the time, the company released a similar statement saying it was “investigating a potential cybersecurity incident”. However, TechCrunch spoke with an anonymous source familiar with the incident that said Olympus was recovering from a ransomware attack.

Allegedly a ransom note was left on the company’s infected systems that linked the attack to the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group BlackMatter. According to ransomware expert and threat analyst at Emsisoft, Brett Callow who spoke with the news outlet, this new group appears to have risen from the ashes of the DarkSide ransomware group which shut down back in May following its attack on the Colonial Pipeline.

Olympus has yet to confirm that the BlackMatter ransomware group was behind the first attack and its investigation of the second attack is still ongoing.

Via TechCrunch