The world’s most iconic police force has been hit by a cyber attack that has taken its website offline
The iconic Canadian National Police, also known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), recently suffered a data breach that temporarily took its website offline β but neither its operations nor citizens should be affected by the incident, according to the report. .
CBC says the RCMP sent a breach notification letter to its employees after the attack, explaining what happened, with a spokesperson for the law enforcement agency confirming the news to the media shortly afterwards.
βThe situation is rapidly evolving, but at this time there is no impact to RCMP operations and no known threat to the safety and security of Canadians,β the RCMP spokesperson said.
Missing details
βWhile a breach of this magnitude is alarming, the rapid work and mitigation strategies put in place demonstrate the important steps the RCMP has taken to detect and prevent these types of threats.β
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) was reportedly notified of the attack, which took the RCMP website offline, but was back up and running at the time of writing.
Other details are unknown at this time, but this could very well be a ransomware attack β possibly even LockBit, as the group promised retaliation against law enforcement for the disruption it experienced last week.
More than twenty servers, a lot of stolen data and a number of encryptors were recently seized in an international effort against LockBit, called Operation Cronos.
Initial reports indicate that data on police investigations, as well as on Canadian citizens, is safe. However, data on RCMP employees could still have been compromised and later used for blackmail or sophisticated spear-phishing attacks.
Typically, ransomware operators refrain from targeting critical infrastructure organizations, healthcare companies, or law enforcement agencies as this allows them to remain undetected for longer and avoid becoming a target themselves.