Financial services company MoneyGram has confirmed that the recent days-long outage was caused by a serious “cybersecurity issue”. The company is currently in the process of restoring its services and reports that it has made some progress.
Several systems have been affected
On September 23, MoneyGram stated that an issue had been identified that was affecting several systems. The outage came to light after users started complaining about the service outage on September 20. Hundreds of others reported similar problems via the website DownDetector in the following days.
Once the problem was identified, the company took swift action. “We immediately initiated an investigation and took protective measures, including preemptively taking systems offline that were impacting network connectivity,” MoneyGram stated. The Dallas, Texas-based company is working closely with law enforcement agencies and leading third-party cybersecurity experts to resolve the issues.
Progress has been made
In a September 24 update, MoneyGram said “progress has been made to successfully restore some of our key transaction systems.” We are working day and night to fully restore services.
MoneyGram indicated that once its systems are back online, users will be able to access their pending transactions. However, the company did not release any details about the nature of the cybersecurity issue, exactly which systems were affected, or whether any sensitive data was compromised.
Ransomware attacks are increasing sharply
The cyber attack comes at a time when crypto-related ransomware attacks are on the rise. Blockchain security company Chainalysis reported that it has already seen an almost 96% increase in ransom payments in 2024 compared to 2023. The increase was partly caused by a record payment of $75 million to the ransomware group Dark Angels.
MoneyGram, one of the largest money transmitters in the world, processes more than $200 billion annually for 50 million customers. The company plays a crucial role for many immigrants in the United States who send money to their families abroad. In early 2024, MoneyGram introduced fiat-to-crypto exchange services and on September 18 partnered with crypto exchange CEX.io to offer stablecoin services through MoneyGram kiosks.
Source: https://newsbit.nl/cyberaanval-legt-moneygram-diensten-wereldwijd-stil-update-hersteloperatie/
