Pendragon’s zealous response to LockBit ransomware is a breath of fresh air

I’ve penned a lot of parts for IT Pro on my thoughts all-around incident response to cyber attacks. I discover it uniquely intriguing from a enterprise point of view, purely because so a lot of companies retain failing miserably in this regard.

It is why I come to feel compelled to sing the praises of organisations that do, in fact, get it suitable. UK-primarily based car dealership group Pendragon is the latest to pique my fascination for its reaction to a LockBit ransomware incident it suffered past 7 days. In the midst of a rumoured £400 million takeover bid and a substantial-road defacement by Just Halt Oil, the company however managed to hit all the suitable notes when it came to its incident response.

1st of all, it produced a devoted web site on its web-site to deliver shoppers, media, traders, and other stakeholders with frequent, timestamped updates on how it was dealing with its response. It was the exact tactic deployed during Norsk Hydro’s 2019 ransomware incident, a single of a selection actions the company took that led quite a few, which include myself, to dub it the ‘gold standard’ of incident response circumstance studies.

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I’m nonetheless nonetheless to come upon an incident wherever a organization has been more liable and extraordinary with its response than Norsk Hydro three years back. It’s a disgrace contemplating how broadly documented it is that businesses recuperate better when their incident reaction is expeditious, open, and honest.

Of class, there are polices throughout Europe that mandate public disclosure of sizeable cyber incidents within specified time frames. The UK’s Information and facts Commissioner’s Business (ICO), for example, enforces disclosure in 72 several hours of detecting the incident and any disclosures outside of that window require a total explanation. GDPR paved the way for dependable disclosure, but organisations are nevertheless not required to go into the depth and depth that Pendragon has picked out to. Kudos all all around.

The point out of affairs in the US is a sorry a single, even though. It’s much from the most modern, or even the most egregious, of circumstances but the a single that always sticks in my head is GoDaddy’s breach in 2021. The incident was only unearthed by savvy journalists, seasoned in the artwork of sifting through the unintuitive SEC filing programs, who discovered the facts of a breach affecting more than 1.2 million buyers. Once the media broke the news, the company determined to go public, but still with only the very bare least degree of insight customers deserved.

Pendragon obviously employs security specialists that are on major of their activity and realize field best tactics for these kinds of eventualities. The organization declared nearly straight away that it would refuse to pay back the $60 million (£53 million) ransom issued by LockBit and immediately gained an interim injunction from the High Court docket to prevent the hackers from leaking the data they stole in the course of action of the attack.

LockBit is a double and triple extortion ransomware organisation, the attacks from which virtually generally involve details theft as perfectly as data encryption. It also is identified for enabling prospects all over 7 days to either shell out the ransom or negotiate it down by direct contact with the group. If no payment is made through this time then sensitive details is leaked on the dark web, opening up the victim to regulatory penalties.

In addition to the wonderful general public disclosure, the business verified in a push launch that it swiftly alerted all of its producing companions and its circa 4,000 workers much too, in addition to the requisite authorities.

It is never a pleasant undertaking owning to report on ransomware attacks, but when companies like Pendragon go the extra mile to handle it in the suitable way, in a regulatory local climate that doesn’t compel it to, it does carry me some joy in providing credit rating wherever it is owing.

I will not go far as to say it is the perfect reaction, and there is undoubtedly room for improvement in the level of detail it equipped regarding its restoration procedure, for instance, but the treatment the business has obviously taken to ensure anyone involved is very well-current is heartening. It’s also an solution I hope to see adopted by extra firms going forwards, though, in my practical experience, it is not really worth any one holding their breath.

Pendragon’s official assertion regarding the security incident:

“We have discovered suspicious action on portion of our IT systems and have verified we experienced an IT security incident. This has not afflicted our means to function, and we continue to services our consumers and communities as regular.

“Upon discovery, we took rapid steps to contain the incident. Our security experts released an substantial investigation to assess fully what has took place and we’ll be keeping our customers and partners up-to-date. To insert, the Pinewood Dealer Management Procedure was and stays entirely unaffected.”