The effects of the recent cyber attack against the cooperative could be much more damaging than we thought previously after the apparent pirates boasted of stealing enormous amounts of data from the company, including customer information.
The “Dragonforce” pirates contacted the BbcSharing screenshots of their communication with the company, where they claim to have stolen “the customer database and data from the cooperative members’ card”.
Coop later seemed to confirm the flight, saying in a declaration to Bleeping Compompute“” Following the current forensic research, we now know that the pirates have been able to access and extract data from one of our systems. “”
Cooperative customer data has been stolen
“Accessible data included information relating to a significant number of our current and previous members,” continued the CO-OP declaration.
“These data include the personal data of the members of the cooperative group such as names and contact details, and do not include passwords of members, bank details or credit cards, transactions or information relating to the products or services of members or customers with the cooperative group.”
In an attempt to prove himself, the Bbc Said shared dragonforce of shared data, including user names and passwords of all co-op employees, as well as a sample of 10,000 customer data, including COOP membership card, names, personal addresses, emails and telephone numbers.
Pirates say that up to 20 million people have registered or have registered in the past, with the cooperative award program, which means that the range of affected users could be enormous.
DragonForce said that he had contacted the Co-Op cybersecurity chief and other executives via Microsoft teams, sharing screenshots of extortion messages with the BBC.
Coop had told employees to keep their cameras using Microsoft teams for meetings, as not to record or transcribe calls, and to check that all participants were a real cooperative staff – who suggested that hackers were in fact able to access internal systems.
Coop has more than 2,500 supermarkets as well as 800 funeral salons and an insurance company and employs around 70,000 employees across the United Kingdom.
The attack on the cooperative was the third of a range of incidents to affect the main British retailers, with Marks and Spencer and Harrods have also struck in recent days.
Dragonforce said to Bbc They were also responsible for other attacks, but apparently shared any proof and refused to develop it.
How can I stay safe?
Although we do not yet know how precise the dragonforce claims are, cooperative customers should be careful in the coming days just to be safe and get ahead of any repercussions if their information has been affected.
In an incident like this where it is not clear what the data, if necessary, have been affected – the first thing to do is to modify your password linked to your cooperative account, as well as all the other sites with the same identification information – we have set up a guide on how to create a secure password to ensure that you are as sure as possible.
The next step, and probably the most important, is to remain vigilant. With your name and your email address, a criminal can send sophisticated social engineering attacks, aimed at encouraging you to hand over more information or inadvertently download malware.
Make sure you check the communications and unexpected email addresses-in particular the cross references against the legitimate email addresses (these can be found on Google).
Beware particularly of any email that asks you to enter information, click on a link or scan a QR code. Phishing attacks using QR codes become more common and are more dangerous than ever, so make sure everything you scan is checked beforehand.
If a criminal sends you an email, there will most likely be signs. The first is the communication email address-if it is G00ggle or M1Crosoft instead of their legitimate addresses, simply remove the email. If you get a unexpected text, email or phone call from anyone claiming to be a “friend”, from a number or address that you do not recognize, in particular the one who asks you to connect, send money, buy a gift card, to be very suspect.
