Reuters reports that one of the largest ransomware attacks in history spread worldwide on Saturday, forcing the Swedish Coop grocery store chain to close all 800 of its stores because it could not operate its cash registers.
The shutdown of the major food retailer followed Friday’s unusually sophisticated attack on US tech provider Kaseya. The ransomware gang known as REvil is suspected of hijacking Kaseya’s desktop management tool VSA and pushing a malicious update that infect tech management providers serving thousands of business.
Huntress Labs, one of the first to sound the alarm of the wave of infections at the providers’ clients, said Saturday that thousands of small companies might have been hit.
Miami-based Kaseya said it was working with the FBI and that only about 40 of its customers were impacted directly. It did not comment on how many of those were providers that in turn spread the malicious software to others.
The impacted businesses had files encrypted and were left electronic messages asking for ransom payments of thousands or millions of dollars.
According to Coop, one of Sweden’s biggest grocery chains, a tool used to remotely update its checkout tills was affected by the attack, so payments could not be taken.
“We have been troubleshooting and restoring all night, but have communicated that we will need to keep the stores closed today,” Coop spokesperson Therese Knapp told Swedish Television.
The Swedish news agency TT said Kaseya technology was used by the Swedish company Visma Esscom, which manages servers and devices for a number of Swedish businesses.
