LineStar Integrity Services Hit By A Ransomware Attack

Last month, a ransomware group Xing Team revealed a set of stolen information from LineStar Integrity Services on its dark website. LineStar is a firm based in Houston that delivers maintenance, compliance, auditing, and IT services to pipeline clients.

A sum of 70 gigabytes of internal files was leaked by the hackers. The data was initially discovered online by the Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a transparency group.

ADVERTISEMENT

Data leaked were contracts, accounting records, 73,500 emails, and other business files. It also includes software data and code, and human resources documents with copies of Social Security cards and driver's licenses of the employees.

LineStar Integrity Services Ransomware Attack

Although the breach does not seem to have disrupted systems in the same way that the Colonial Pipeline hack did, security experts warn that the leaked data might give hackers a roadmap for future pipeline attacks.

ADVERTISEMENT

That data leak might be exploited by other ransomware attackers who scan the dark web for data that can be used to pose as corporations and attack their consumers.

LineStar did not give comments to several inquiries before publication but did provide an email response a few hours after the report was posted.

Chris Boston, CFO of LineStar, said "LineStar is a small, private company and we were the victim of a ransomware attack in late April that targeted corporate data. There was no impact to either internal or customer operations."

ADVERTISEMENT

He said that the firm immediately informed their employees of a suspected breach involving staff personal details, hired third-party IT specialists. LineStar alerted the FBI following the incident and has taken all necessary precautions to protect its workers.

Xing Team is a relatively new group in the ransomware industry, thought to be a Chinese hacker team, although there's not much evidence to back it up.

Brett Callow, a researcher at Emsisoft, said that the Xing Team used the Mount Locker malware rebranded version to encrypt files and threaten to disclose the data to demand money from victims.

Because of the risks that hackers might pose to the pipeline business, the latest cyber attack on Colonial Pipeline has impacted the world. It disrupted gas distribution over most of the United States East Coast.

Following the shutdown of Colonial, ransomware attackers hit another pipeline company. This move perhaps signaling a pattern of cybercriminals attacking essential services.

In the United States, there appears to be a hacking crisis, which might threaten the economy's backbone.

No posts to display