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Strata management company SSKB has become the latest Australian company to fall victim to a ransomware attack, with the company being extorted by cyber criminals who claim to have stolen 200 gigabytes of data.
The cyber criminals have told SSKB, headquartered on the Gold Coast but with offices across Queensland and in Melbourne, that it has eight days to hand over a ransom before the data is published.
The strata management company’s phone lines are down, and its website displays a notice that reads experiencing “some phone and technical issues”, indicating the company’s operating systems had been impacted by the hack.
The cyber criminal is seeking US$300,000, the equivalent of about $460,000 in Australian currency, in ransom payments after posting a “proof of hack” on a Tor site on the dark web.
“The SSKB.com.au. We present to your attention an Australian construction company.
“We stole about 200gb of confidential data, construction projects.
“Financial files of the company’s customers. Correspondence of top managers. Contracts and agreements. If you do not contact us, ALL data will be available for download,” the alleged hacker wrote.
The cyber criminal also included a “victim URL” aimed at enabling SSKB to contact them.
A countdown clock is included on the page to when the data will be published along with an option for the strata management company to extend the time available to it, by paying for extra time at the cost of US$5,000 for an extra 24 hours.
According to The Australian, the SSKB data is advertised among other companies from around the globe that apparently have been hacked and it’s understood the Australian Cyber Security Centre is aware of the hack.
The hack is the latest in a string of cyber attacks that have hit high-profile Australian companies that included recent data breaches at Optus, Medibank and Australian Clinical Labs pathology services.
The SSKB hack would most likely include identifying information of the strata management company’s customers, including names, email addresses and phone numbers.
SSKB’s app and owner’s portal appear to still be working, according to The Australian.
[Related: Data rights advocates warn real estate sector security breach would be chaos]
Nastasha is a Journalist at Momentum Media, she reports extensively across veterans affairs, cyber security and geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific. She is a co-author of a book titled The Stories Women Journalists Tell, published by Penguin Random House. Previously, she was a Content Producer at Verizon Media, a Digital Producer for Yahoo! and Channel 7, a Digital Journalist at Sky News Australia, as well as a Website Manager and Digital Producer at SBS Australia. Nastasha started her career in media as a Video Producer and Digital News Presenter at News Corp Australia.
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