Security News > 2021 > January > Scottish Environment Protection Agency refuses to pay ransomware crooks over 1.2GB of stolen data
"On Christmas Eve, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that it was responding to a significant cyber-attack affecting its contact centre, internal systems, processes and internal communications," it revealed.
Certain systems have been "Isolated" but SEPA warned that security experts working with the Scottish government, Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre "Confirm we remain subject to an ongoing ransomware attack likely to be by international serious and organised cyber-crime groups intent on disrupting public services and extorting public funds."
So what's been pinched? Security specialists going over the attack and its impact have so far identified a loss of around 1.2GB worth of data, an indication that "At least four thousand files may have been accessed and stolen by criminals", SEPA said.
SEPA has yet to identify the crew behind the attack but, according to Bank Info Security, the Conti ransomware gang appears to have published the data stolen.
SEPA CEO Terry A'Hearn said the agency will not pay.
"We won't be using public funds to pay ransom to criminals. This has commonly happened to other organisations, so we are following the experience that others have had, the advice from the police. We will recover our ability to have data and systems, that may take some time but others have been through this," he told BBC Scotland.