Pharmaceutical firm affected by ransomware

On April 17, 2020, US-based pharmaceutical firm ExecuPharm revealed a data breach incident. Compromised personal data includes Social Security numbers, driver licenses, national insurance numbers, national ID numbers, beneficiary information, bank account details, passport details, and credit card information.

The incident

The ransomware attack was detected on March 13. The attackers infiltrated the network via phishing emails and injected ransomware, which encrypted ExecuPharm and parent company's personnel files.

“ExecuPharm immediately launched an investigation, alerted federal and local law enforcement authorities, retained leading cybersecurity firms to investigate the nature and scope of the incident, and notified all potentially impacted parties,” said ExecuPharm operations chief David Granese. The company did not give in to the ransom demands. After the incident, the internal security team worked with a leading cybersecurity forensic firm to restore the services. To prevent future attacks, ExecuPharm upgraded its security measures by implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) and endpoint protection tools.

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