Pakistan’s largest private power supplier, K-Electric has been hit by the NetWalker ransomware group. While this hasn’t affected the K-Electric’s power supply to customers, it took down the online operations like billing services. From its Tor payment page, the NetWalker group is demanding a ransom of $3.8 million for the decryptor, without confirming any data stealing.
Pakistan’s Largest Private Power Supplier Hit by Ransomware
K-Electric Online Services Hit by NetWalker Ransomware Group has evolved to be one of the strongest ransomware attackers after hiring expert hackers and targeting corporations. The group has earlier hit Michigan State University and threatened to leak their stolen data. And now, it has fallen onto Pakistan’s largest private power supplier – K-Electric.
K-Electric has been in operation for more than 100 years and powers the electrical needs of 2.5 million customers with more than 10,000 employees.
The company is vertically integrated, as it produces, transmissions and distributes its power to residents, commercial purposes, and agriculture across Karachi. And now, it’s affected by the NetWalker ransomware group.
As per the BleepingComputer report, a local Pakistani security firm has tipped Ransom Leaks about the ransomware hit, which is still unconfirmed about any data-stealing or network encryption. Yet, the online service of K-Electric was distributed since many customers have reported problems on the billing portal. While this being the case, no power supply utilities were affected by the attack.
Although, the Tor page of NetWalker ransomware has been updated with a payment link for K-Electric, which is now demanding about $3.8 million in Bitcoin ransom, payable by 15th of this month.
The group also warns about doubling the amount to $7.7 million afterward and set up the payment page with options for free sample decryption, FAQs, and stolen data section.
