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TechNewsWorld: 49ers Blitzed by Ransomware
On February 15, 2022, Nabil Hannan was featured in a TechNewsWorld article titled, 49ers Blitzed by Ransomware. Preview the article below, or read the full article online here.
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While their downstate rivals the Los Angeles Rams were busy winning Super Bowl LVI, the San Francisco 49ers were being clipped in a ransomware attack.
News of the attack was reported by the Associated Press after cybercriminals posted documents to the dark web that they claimed were stolen from the NFL franchise.
In a public statement obtained by TechNewsWorld, the team noted: “We recently became aware of a network security incident that resulted in temporary disruption to certain systems on our corporate IT network.”
Looking for Street Cred
Nabil Hannan, managing director at NetSPI, a penetration testing company in Minneapolis, maintained that it’s unusual for a ransomware gang to post exfiltrated data on the web without making any ransom demands.
“I would assume this is due to the fact that they weren’t able to hold any critical systems hostage,” he told TechNewsWorld.
“The gang may have been able to encrypt/steal some files or systems that were categorized as non-critical, but they likely knew that they wouldn’t be able to receive any ransom payout for such information,” he surmised.
“Most likely this was an act to get ‘street creds’ and pose that they were able to steal information from such a high profile organization to show their reach and ability to break into any system,” he said.
