Yellow Pages Hack – Ransomware Gang Leaks Sensitive Data

Yellow Pages Hack

The Yellow Pages cyberattack took place in March 2023. Cybalt analyzed the Yellow Pages hack and found that the cyberattack could have resulted in a major exposure of personal information like tax-related documents, ID documents (driving licenses, passports, DOBs, and addresses), sale and purchase certificates, account-related spreadsheets, and vital budgetary details.

Furthermore, Cybalt observed that unauthorized third parties tend to steal personal information from servers that have employee data and restricted client information. Organizations can prevent ransomware leaks by employing experts in malware analysis, open source software, and vulnerability research.

Yellow Pages Hack: Cybalt’s Perspective

Cybalt has acknowledged the Yellow Pages cyberattack. In this cyberattack, cybersecurity was compromised, and the online and print directory services organization could have heavily lost valuable client data. Approximately 3,00,000 users’ data was forfeited in the cyberattack.

Due to the attack, important personal information was made available in the public domain. This information leak could have harmed the victims irreparably. The security experts at Cybalt strongly believe that due to the faster remedial steps, Yellow Pages was not only able to investigate the cyberattack but also secure its networks from further data loss. As a sequence of cyberattacks, the Yellow Pages hack was not the only attack. There was also an attack on an international food retail giant, causing IT issues and point-of-sale malfunctions. The food retail attack also had a predecessor, a professional outsourcing provider, wherein the data was stolen for a ransom.

 

Protecting organizations from ransomware

• Use up-to-date software
• Layer the security measures
• Configure access controls
• Perform awareness training

Cybalt believes that cyberattacks are becoming more advanced, frequent, and difficult to prevent. Organizations need to beware of attacks like ransomware. The organizations need to ensure that software is always up-to-date and that the security layer is inclusive of antivirus, firewall, antimalware, data protection algorithms, and spam filters. Moreover, the access controls along with awareness training for resource utilization must be optimized. Accordingly, organizations must be cautious and take mandatory measures to safeguard their networks and secure their customers' vital information. It is not only the duty of the organization, but the users also need to be alert and monitor their personal information in case of any discrepancy. They should be aware of the cybersecurity aspects and take appropriate action if they are suspicious about their data being compromised. As organizations majorly rely on advanced technologies, cybersecurity becomes an essential part to be prioritized for business processes.

Cybalt’s Approach to Remediation

Cybalt perceives that organizations must follow the necessary guidelines to avoid leakage of sensitive data. Some of the pointers are:

• Organizations must secure their systems to ensure maximum cybersecurity. It is the most basic and essential pointer for securing and protecting systems against future attacks. Organizations need to update their systems with the latest software and security patches.
• Organizations must perform regular review processes related to cybersecurity policies and procedures. Accordingly, advanced threat detection and prevention deployment must be implemented across the network.
• Apart from software updates, organizations must be skilled enough to monitor their networks for any suspicious activity, for example, unauthenticated login attempts and anomalous traffic patterns. The team must be proficient enough to implement a comprehensive security information system to enable real-time detection of any potential threats.
• The backup processes must work efficiently to ensure timely backups of critical data. The processes must be evaluated for effectiveness and promptness.
• An advanced incident response plan must be in place to manage any cybersecurity incident. The cybersecurity team must respond promptly by performing frequent drills to test the incident response plan and executing tabletop exercises for managing cybersecurity concerns.
• Along with efficient backup processes, organizations must also maintain offline backups. In the case of a ransomware attack, like the Yellow Pages hack, the hacker often tries to encrypt or delete the backups. So, it is always advisable to keep offline backups too.
• Organizations must never access attachments and/or open links received from unknown sources.

Thus, after carefully analyzing the Yellow Pages cyberattack, Cybalt has identified the crucial aspects of cybersecurity recognized the need for a streamlined approach to remediate the cyberattacks.