An alleged ransomware attack hit the Italian Banca di Credito Cooperativo causing chaos

Banca di Credito Cooperativo (BCC), one of the largest Italian cooperative credit banks was hit by a ransomware attack.

Banca di Credito Cooperativo (BCC), one of the largest Italian cooperative credit banks, was hit by a cyberattack allegedly carried out by one of the most aggressive ransomware gangs, Darkside.

The attack paralyzed the operations at 188 branches causing serious problems to the customers of the bank as reported by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. The Italian newspaper also shared an image of a ransom note that was dropped on the computers of the bank, the attackers claim to be the DarkSide ransomware gang.

The bank attempted to downplay the problem reporting that the root cause of the issue was related to technical issues at the communication systems.

The statement published by the bank invites the customers to use the ATMs or the Home Banking service, which according to the bank were not impacted.

“We inform our customers that the Agencies, albeit with slowed-down operations due to line problems, are regularly open to the public.”

We also inform you that the technical problems that slowed down normal operations are being resolved and will be gradually restored from Monday 3 May at the latest.

Please note that the ATM is active and that the Home Banking services can be used directly from a PC or smartphone, through which it is possible to carry out all information and dispositive operations.

“We inform our customers that the Agencies, albeit with slowed-down operations due to line problems, are regularly open to the public.” reads the statement published by the company. “Please note that the ATM is active and that the Home Banking services can be used directly from a PC or smartphone, through which it is possible to carry out all information and dispositive operations.”

The bank plans to completely restore all the operations by May 3rd.

At the time of this writing, the Banca di Credito Cooperativo (BCC) has yet to be included in the list of the victims of the Darkside group that is published on their leak site, likely because there is an ongoing negotiation.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Banca di Credito Cooperativo)