- BridgePay hit by ransomware attack, forcing payment gateway services offline across US
- The company says no payment card data compromised; investigation ongoing with forensic teams including the US Secret Service
- Power outages disrupted merchants nationwide, affecting APIs, virtual terminals and forcing many to accept cash only
BridgePay, a major US payment gateway, was hit by a ransomware attack late last week that knocked their services offline and caused problems for services across the country.
On a dedicated incident response page, BridgePay said on Friday that the outage it experienced, which forced its systems temporarily offline, was the result of a ransomware attack.
To contain and mitigate the threat, the company brought in specialized forensic teams and recovery teams, including US Secret Service forensic teams.
The attacker’s identity is unknown
“Initial forensic findings indicate that no payment card data has been compromised and any files that may have been accessed were encrypted,” the announcement reads. “At this time, there is no evidence of actionable data exposure.”
The latest update, published Sunday afternoon, said the investigation, as well as remediation efforts, were still ongoing.
So far, we don’t know who the threat actors are or how they broke in. Typically, cybercriminals would either exploit a vulnerability in networked devices or obtain login information through social engineering and phishing.
Likewise, the bad guys would exfiltrate sensitive data from compromised systems as leverage during the negotiation process. They would usually demand payment in Bitcoin in exchange for deleting the data. For victims who don’t comply, their data ends up on the dark web.
The effects of the attack are felt in all industries. BleepingComputer reports that many US merchants and organizations were forced to accept cash only. Several services were affected, including BridgePay Gateway API (BridgeComm), PayGuardian Cloud API, MyBridgePay virtual terminal and reporting, and many others.
Via Bleeping Computer
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