Ion Group, a Dublin-Based financial software company, has been recently struck by some ransomware that has severely affected many banks using its software, many of them being from Europe and the United States. Here is what has entailed for the company ever since the ransomware struck them, and more importantly, the impact that has left the company and its clients.
The company, in particular its Cleared Derivatives division, is known to produce and sell software meant to automate the financial trading lifestyle and the derivatives clearing process. Moreover, Derivatives are financial products that hold value from an underlying product, such as stocks, currencies, bonds, and commodities. As such, since the virus struck the company, many banks were forced to manually process the trade.
Investigations within the matter reveal that the hack was linked to Lockbit (who had later claimed responsibility for the attack), a professional Russian crime ransomware gang; upon inflicting the hack, they demanded the company to pay the ransom by February 1st, under the threat that they will publish the stolen data. Furthermore, this threat was gathered from a screenshot of the group’s blog on the dark web on darkfeed.io, which tracks ransomware activity.
Under the circumstances of the hack, the attack has impacted at least 42 of Ion Group’s clients, with many commercial banks experiencing issues, such as the ability to obtain quotes. In addition, some of these clients include ABN Amro Clearing and Intensa Sanplo, one of Italy’s biggest banks. Furthermore, Ion commented on the situation: "The incident is contained to a specific environment, all the affected servers are disconnected, and remediation of services is ongoing.” However, any further comments on the matters were declined by the company.
As a result of this, The Future Industry Association, a US-based industry advocacy group for the future, options, and derivatives markets has been working with those impacted to assess the situation. According to a Reuters article, they have stated that although the issues at Ion had affected the trading and clearing of exchanged-traded financial derivatives, there have yet to be any reports of margin problems in financial markets.
Likewise, in a TechCrunch Article, the US treasury has downplayed the impact of the ransomware attack, claiming that the incident is isolated to a small number of smaller and middle-sized firms. Conklin says, "The issue does not pose a systematic risk to the financial sector. We will remain connected with key financial sector partners and advise any changes to this assessment.”
According to a Bloomberg correspondence email, Ion Group has made a statement informing its clients that its systems will fully be operational on February 6th. As the ransom date has passed, it is still unknown what might entail for Ion Group’s dilemma with its ransomware attack.
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