Polycab, Motilal Oswal, Bira91 Among Latest Companies To Be Hit By Ransomware Attacks

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India is one of the most attacked countries in cyberspace, and ransomware attacks are the biggest growing threat. In the last two weeks, multiple reports published by global cybersecurity companies point out that ransomware and malware attacks have surged in the country. Despite this, only a handful of organisations have a formal ransomware plan in place, with some of them even resorting to paying the ransom demands.
On March 17, Polycab India was targeted by LockBit, the most active global ransomware group. According to Polycab, the incident did not impact the core systems and operations of India’s largest wire and cable maker. “The technical team of the company along with a specialised team of external cybersecurity experts are working actively on analysing the incident,” it said in a filing with the stock exchanges. There was no mention of any ransom paid in the filing.
Similarly, prominent brokerage firm Motilal Oswal (MOSL), which has over 6 million clients, was attacked by the same ransomware group in mid-February. LockBit claimed the attack on its dark website. MOSL detected a cyber-incident in the form of some malicious activity on a few of the employees’ computers. Their IT security team activated its cybersecurity incident response process to investigate, contain, and remediate the incident in an hour.
“This incident has not affected any of our business operations or IT environment. It is business as usual. We also proactively went ahead and reported this matter to relevant law enforcement and regulatory authorities immediately,” the company said in a formal statement.

Lockbit has hacked some of the world’s largest organisations recently. On February 19, Britain’s National Crime Agency, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Europol, and a coalition of international police agencies disrupted Lockbit’s operations by taking over its website. “This site is now under the control of the National Crime Agency of the UK, working in close cooperation with the FBI and the international law enforcement task force, ‘Operation Cronos’,” a post on the ransomware group’s website said.
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