Apex Capital blames malware attack for ‘unplanned system outage’

After initially blaming an “unplanned system outage” for its computer networks being knocked offline since early Monday, Apex Capital Corp. and its subsidiary, TCS Fuel, confirmed that both companies’ systems were targeted in a malware attack.

Ransomware gang BlackByte is claiming responsibility for infecting the operating systems of one of the largest factoring companies in the U.S., Apex Capital, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, which, in turn, shut down TCS Fuel’s network.

In February, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) about BlackByte. The report described the gang as “a Ransomware-as-a-Service group that encrypts files on compromised Windows host systems, including physical and virtual servers.”

Some small-business truckers who utilize Apex Capital to factor their accounts receivable or fuel their trucks using discount fuel cards through TCS told FreightWaves they were alarmed Monday morning when they were unable to log on to the companies’ systems, fuel their trucks or access funds to pay their owner-operators.

Apex Capital and TCS Fuel specialize in providing financial services for small and medium-size trucking companies.

Sherry Leigh, chief product and marketing officer at Apex, reiterated to FreightWaves and its customers that the company “remains financially strong.”

“We were infected by malware, and we are continuing to work around the clock to get our systems back online,” Leigh said in an email. “The good news is our core systems and client databases remain intact and we are successfully bringing our processing back online. However, this continues to be a slow process.”

On Monday, Leigh declined to comment about what data may have been stolen by the hackers who accessed Apex’s system.

Late Tuesday, Chris Bozek, president of Apex Capital Corp., posted a message on the company’s website and social media accounts, including Twitter, about its efforts to fund its trucking customers.

“Our employees continue to work diligently to process invoices and fund our clients,” Bozek said in the statement. Despite these trying circumstances we are doing our best to provide you the best service possible.”

Brett Callow, threat analyst at Emsisoft, confirmed that BlackByte was responsible for the ransomware attack on Apex Capital and is using evolving methods to target its victims.

“You’ll see they’ve got some new tactics,” Callow told FreightWaves. “Victims can pay to extend the time until the [confidential] data is published, to have the data deleted (supposedly), while anyone can pay to download it.”

According to BlackByte’s ransomware demand, anyone can pay $5,000 to extend the company’s data release for 24 hours, $300,000 to destroy all the information and $200,000 to download all of Apex’s data. Soufiane Tahiri, an information security engineer, shared details about the malware attack on his Twitter account early Tuesday.

“The price [to download the data] could be set intentionally low,” Callow said. “The hackers may hope that the victims will believe the low price will result in one or more third parties buying it should they not pay the demand to have the data (supposedly) taken off the market. The third parties in question could be other cybercriminals or perhaps even competitors [of Apex].”

Callow said it’s unclear where BlackByte’s operation is based but added that it’s possible there’s some overlap with another ransomware operation: Conti.

“Also, the fact the developers may be based in a particular country or countries doesn’t mean that it’s where the attack came from. The groups effectively “rent” their ransomware to affiliates who use it in their attacks — and the affiliates can be based anywhere,” he said.

Bozek said Apex is working around the clock to get “our systems back up and running again.” 

This is a developing story.

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Source: freightwaves - Apex Capital blames malware attack for ‘unplanned system outage’
Editor: Clarissa Hawes