CompuCom is an IT managed services provider (MSP) and a wholly-owned subsidiary of The ODP Corporation (Office Depot/Office Max). The attack involved DarkSide ransomware, according to BleepingComputer. However, CompuCom has not publicly confirmed that assertion.
“The Company estimates the loss of revenue to be between $5.0 million and $8.0 million as a result of the incident (primarily because of CompuCom’s need to temporarily suspend certain services to certain customers),” the ODP Corporation revealed on Friday.
The MSP is still working on restoring service delivery to customers since the ransomware hit its network and expects to “have service delivery restored to substantially all of its customers” by the end of March, 2021.
Taking a dive into the malware issue is Gary Ogasawara, CTO, Cloudian. Ogasawara begins by considering why the issue is so impactful: “A ransomware attack on a managed service provider like CompuCom can be especially devastating, as MSPs not only have their own brand to consider, but the many customers relying on their services.”
In terms of the scale of the issue, Ogasawara outlines: “CompuCom is the fifth large solution provider to suffer a ransomware attack in the past year, following attacks on Cognizant, Conduent, DXC Technology and Tyler Technologies. This trend emphasizes the need to rethink ransomware protection altogether by protecting data at the storage level with an immutable backup copy.”
As to what this means, Ogasawara explains: “Immutability makes data unchangeable for a set period of time, preventing encryption by malware. The result is comparable to offline storage and allows businesses to get back up and running with minimal disruption. As ransomware continues to plague service providers, organizations should seriously assess their data protection strategy to see whether it is sophisticated enough to withstand an attack.”
