anon appears to have become the latest high-profile organization to fall victim to a ransomware attack, which has paralyzed its email services, US website and various internal applications.
Yesterday, the Canon IT department issued a notice to staff explaining the company is suffering “widespread system issues affecting multiple applications, Teams, email and other systems”, but did not offer further explanation.
Canon’s US website is also currently down and is serving a message that seems to suggest routine maintenance is taking place. However, a screen capture obtained by BleepingComputer, appears to reveal that Maze ransomware is responsible for the ongoing issues at Canon.
“We hacked your network and now all your files, documents, photos, databases and other important data are safely encrypted with reliable algorithms.
You cannot access the files right now. But do not worry. You can get it back!” reads the ransom note. Maze ransomware, the strain responsible for the Canon attack, has previously been used to encrypt and steal the data of companies including LG, Xerox, Cognizant and others.
In many instances, Maze operators also lift a significant amount of data from the target organization, to use as leverage in negotiations.
In the case of Canon, the hackers claim to have stolen 10TB of data from private databases.