Tag Archive for: Toronto

Toronto Zoo hit by ransomware

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The municipally-owned Toronto Zoo has been hit by a ransomware attack.

The cyber attack was first detected early Friday, Jan. 5, the zoo said in a statement Monday,

“We are investigating the impact, if any, to our guests, members and donor records,” the statement says. “We can confirm we do not currently store any credit card information. Once we have more information we will share it broadly.

In addition to member and donor records, the IT system might have information on the 273 permanent full-time and 330 part-time or seasonal employees.

“We are working with the City of Toronto’s Chief Information Security Office and third-party cyber security experts to resolve the situation and have reported it to Toronto Police Services” the statement said.

The internationally respected zoo is located in a river valley at the eastern edge of the city, spread over 287 hectares (710 acres). It attracts about 1.3 million visitors a year. Its collection includes 5,816 animals, not including invertebrates, representing 495 different
species.

Asked for comment, Katie Gray, the zoo’s strategic communications manager, said, “We can’t share anything further than what’s in the release.”

The incident comes after a ransomware attack in October on the Toronto Public Library system. Among the questions is whether there is a link between that attack and the zoo compromise. The City of Toronto was itself one of the over 2,000 victim organizations of the vulnerability in the MOVEit file transfer application, which was leveraged by the Cl0p ransomware gang last May.

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Ransomware was behind Toronto Public Library attack

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Ransomware is behind last week’s cyber attack against the Toronto Public Library’s IT systems, a spokesperson has confirmed.

Ana-Maria Critchley, the library’s manager of communications and stakeholder relations, made the confirmation in an email this morning. However, she wouldn’t comment on questions about how the incident started and how long it will be before the library’s IT-related services can be back to normal.

“We’re not doing interviews for now,” she said in the email. Any information is being released on the library’s website, tpl.ca.

“There continues to be no evidence at this time that the personal information of our staff or customers has been compromised”, the site says.

The attack started Saturday, Oct. 28.

Library branches are still open, and visitors can still borrow and return books, although the processing and tracking is done on paper rather than by computer. Access to online services such as TPL Kids, Canadiana Online, and others continues to grow.

But library members still can’t access their online accounts or access the library’s digital collection, nor can visitors access public computers or printers.

“Based on our progress to date, we anticipate that it will take a week or more before all systems are fully restored to normal operations,” the site says.

This continues to be a bad year for ransomware around the world, including in Canada. According to B.C.-based Emsisoft threat analyst Brett Callow, the Medusa ransomware gang says it recently hit an Indigenous band and a native counseling service in Alberta, and the Canadian Psychological Association, whose members are psychologists across the country. The CPA hasn’t responded to an email or phone call asking about the attack.

The BlackBasta ransomware group now lists an Alberta-based provider of insurance and healthcare benefits to construction unions among its victims, he added.

In addition, the Daxin Team ransomware group released its third tranche of data stolen from southwestern Ontario hospitals that share an IT services provider.

Separately, Sophos today released a report on ransomware in the global retail sector (registration required), which pulled out data from its…

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‘It’s a pretty big issue for the city’: Ransomware attack responsible for Toronto Public Library outage

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Library branches remain open as scheduled but its website, public computers, printing services, digital collections and MAP passes are still unavailable.

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Over $1 Million Awarded To Hackers In Pwn2Own Toronto

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Pwn2Own, the annual computer hacking contest that concluded in Toronto, Canada, on October 27, 2023, saw security researchers earning $1,038,500 for 58 unique zero-day exploits (and multiple bug collisions).

The four-day hacking event was held between October 24, 2023, and October 27, 2023, with prize money to be won over $1,000,000 USD and other forms of prizes available for contestants.

The hacking event had multiple categories for the security researchers to target in the competition, which included printers, surveillance systems, network-attached storage (NAS) devices, mobile phones, home automation hubs, smart speakers, and Google’s Pixel Watch and Chromecast devices.

The hacking contest saw the Samsung Galaxy S23 being successfully hacked four times by the teams of Pentest Ltd, STAR Labs SG, Interrupt Labs, and ToChim. While Pentest Ltd and Interrupt Labs were able to execute an Improper Input Validation against the Samsung Galaxy S23, STAR Labs SG and ToChim were able to exploit a permissive list of allowed inputs against the smartphone.

Further, the exploitation of Samsung Galaxy S23 earned the Pentest Ltd and Interrupt Labs teams a reward of $50,000 and $25,000, respectively, and 5 Master of Pwn points, while the STAR Labs SG and ToChim teams got $25,000 and 5 Master of Pwn points each for their exploits.

Other Highlights:

  • Chris Anastasio was able to exploit a bug in the TP-Link Omada Gigabit Router and another in the Lexmark CX331adwe for $100,000
  • Team Orca of Sea Security executed a 2-bug chain using an OOB Read and UAF against the Sonos Era 100 for $60,000
  • A DEVCORE Intern executed a stack overflow attack against the TP-Link Omada Gigabit Router and exploited two bugs in the QNAP TS-464 for $50,000
  • Team Viettel was able to execute a heap-based buffer overflow and a stack-based buffer overflow against the TP-Link Omada Gigabit Router and the Canon imageCLASS MF753Cdw for the SOHO Smashup for $50,000
  • Xiaomi, Western Digital, Synology, Canon, Lexmark, Sonos, TP-Link, QNAP, Wyze, Lexmark, and HP were all exploited during the competition

The overall Master of Pwn winner was Team Viettel, with 30 Master of Pwn points, winning $180,000. They were followed on the…

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