Hackers leaked employee data exposing personal information of numerous employees.
One of the largest producers of trailers for the trucking industry in the U.S. Utility Trailer Manufacturing has “suffered a cyber event.” The company admitted an apparent ransomware attack disrupted its IT systems temporarily and exposed personal information of its employees.
The attack is attributed to the Clop ransomware gang.
The California-based company is headquartered in the City of Industry. Utility operates five factories in the U.S.
The company disclosed the incident after the gang leaked over 5 Gb of data on the dark web this week.
“Upon discovery, Utility immediately responded to secure its systems and commenced an investigation into the nature and scope of the event,” Utility said in a statement.
At this time, the full scale of the impact is not known but the company has onboarded external specialists to conduct an investigation:
“Utility is working around the clock with assistance from third-party forensic computer specialists to investigate the full nature and scope of the attack and to bring the offline systems back online safely and securely.”
However, the company does not disclose how much data had been compromised.
Utility did not provide any more details about the cyberattack, it is unknown when it occurred,d whether it has impacted operation, and whether the hackers made any ransom demands.
The leaked data reportedly includes a large amount of sensitive personal data about the company’s employees, including, but not limited to, payrolls and human resources information.
“Utility treats its responsibility to safeguard client, customer and employee information and data as an utmost priority,” the company said.
Ransomware gangs like Clop typically leak data either to prove they got hold of it and when victims refuse to pay the ransom.
Recently, Clop has been involved in ransomware attacks on other industrial companies, including rail operator CSX and the Canadian fuel distributor Parkland.
