The Cl0p Ransomware Gang Attacks Westat

The Cl0p ransomware gang has attacked Westat. Westat is a research services company founded in 1961 and headquartered in the United States. With a strong reputation in the field, Westat specializes in conducting research studies and providing data collection and analysis services for a diverse range of clients, including government agencies, businesses, and organizations. The company's expertise spans various domains, including social and behavioral research, health research, and education research. They are known for designing and implementing surveys, evaluations, and studies that provide valuable insights into human behavior, societal trends, healthcare practices, education outcomes, and more.

Cl0p's Announcement

Cl0p posted Westat to its data leak site on August 15th but provided no further details.

About Cl0p Ransomware

Cl0p is a major Ransomware-as-service (RaaS) platform first observed in 2019. Cl0p is a dangerous ransomware family because it has advanced anti-analysis capabilities and anti-virtual machine analysis to prevent investigations in an emulated environment like those commonly used by security tools. Cl0p is one of just a handful of threat actors that have developed a Linux version. While Linux has a tiny footprint in desktop computing, it runs ~80% of web servers and a substantial portion of embedded devices used in the healthcare field – and this means that Cl0p is likely actively recruiting new talent to help improve their platform and expand the scope of what and whom they can attack.