ZooTampa, a popular family attraction and recipient of multiple TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Awards, has reportedly been targeted in a cyber attack. The well-known hacker group, Black Suit, has included ZooTampa as one of its victims in their latest attack.
Brett Callow, a threat analyst, shared a post on Twitter that featured an image seemingly associated with the cyber attack on ZooTampa as claimed by the hacker group. The Cyber Express reached out to ZooTampa for more information on the alleged attack, but the company has yet to provide an official response or statement regarding the incident.
This cyber attack on ZooTampa is not an isolated occurrence. In recent years, other zoos such as the Louisville Zoo and the Detroit Zoo have also faced cybersecurity breaches. The Louisville Zoo experienced a similar breach last year, where member and email subscriber information were compromised. The zoo attributed the breach to a ransomware attack on the company responsible for email communications.
Personal information including names, physical addresses, email addresses, membership numbers, and membership levels were acquired by unauthorized parties. The service provider, WordFly, believes that the data has since been deleted by the unauthorized party. While sensitive personal information like payment card details were not stored with WordFly, the zoo urged supporters to be cautious of phishing attempts and to exercise vigilance when receiving emails, text messages, or phone calls requesting personal information or containing suspicious links and attachments.
In another incident, the Detroit Zoo disclosed in 2015 that their gift shop checkout terminals were targeted by hackers. This breach affected seven other zoos across the country that all utilized the services of Service Systems Associates as their payment processing vendor. The compromised period was limited to March 23 through June 25 of that year.
Although ZooTampa has not confirmed the cyber attack, BlackSuit has listed them as a victim. The hacker group has a history of launching cyber attacks on IT systems in Dallas, Texas. Researchers on Twitter have found that the threat actor has targeted both Windows and Linux users.
A recent report analyzed the “Linux variant” of the BlackSuit ransomware strain and found striking similarities with another popular ransomware family called Royal. Trend Micro conducted an analysis as well and identified an “extremely high degree of similarity” between Royal and BlackSuit. Using a powerful tool for binary file comparison called BinDiff, researchers discovered that BlackSuit and Royal were virtually indistinguishable. The findings revealed high levels of similarity in functions, blocks, and jumps for both the Linux and Windows variants of the ransomware.
Overall, the cyber attack on ZooTampa highlights the ongoing risk faced by zoos and other organizations in the cybersecurity landscape. It serves as a reminder for companies to prioritize security measures and remain vigilant against potential attacks. Cybersecurity breaches can have significant consequences, from compromising personal information to disrupting operations. As technology continues to advance, it is crucial for organizations to stay up to date with the latest security protocols and invest in robust cybersecurity measures to protect themselves and their customers from cyber threats.