ION Trading Hit with Ransomware, FBI Now Investigating it With UK Regulators

The famed ION Trading UK organization was hit with a ransomware attack earlier and suffered from extensive effects of the hack. It disrupted global derivatives trading, according to reports. Now, the FBI is working with the United Kingdom's regulators to investigate the incident and learn more about what happened to the company.

It is yet unknown what this attack brought for ION's customers, especially with the trading firm having massive connections worldwide.

ION Trading UK Hit with Ransomware Attack

ION Group first announced that it was hit with a cyberattack last Tuesday, Jan. 31, via a press release on its website, claiming that there was a disruption in its Cleared Derivatives division that was yet unknown.

Several days later, the company gained more insight into the ransomware attack which affected its systems, claiming that it was contained to a specific environment. The trading group also claimed it had already disconnected all the affected servers after the incident.

According to Reuters, this attack on ION would take days before it could regain operations, until Sunday, Feb. 5.

FBI Now Investigating ION with UK

Bloomberg's latest report says that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is now joining hands with UK security agencies to investigate what happened behind this cyberattack. As per sources, 42 of ION's clients were affected by this, and the disconnected server caused several US and EU partner banks to input the derivatives manually.

ION also confirmed that the LockBit gang from Russia carried out the attack.

The trading group has not yet begun its crucial recovery steps to regain access and fix its accessed networks. However, it asks for until Sunday to address the issue and resume operations.

Ransomware Attack

There were confirmations from ION that the group behind this attack was the Russia-based Ransomware as a service (RaaS) organization LockBit which led the access.

The gang is known for its notorious access to massive companies and influence all over the world, accounting for as much as 40% of the attacks in August 2022.

However, the Lockbit gang was once branded as "hackers with a heart" after apologizing for a wrongful attack and claiming that they had a code in who or when to execute their malware.

Early this January, the hacker group apologized for the attack against the SickKids hospital in Canada, saying that a fellow member violated their code.

Despite previously apologizing for their actions, LockBit is at it again with their crimes against organizations and companies, with their latest victims allegedly ION Trading UK.

Different security agencies are now looking into what happened, and it involved international collaborations to take place for this recent massive disruption.