Australia’s Gold Mining Company ‘Evolution Mining’ Announces Ransomware Attack

• Evolution Mining Limited observed a ransomware attack impacted their IT systems last week.
• The recent breach acknowledgment mentions the security incident was contained.
• The company started an investigation to learn about the scope and nature of the event. 

Sydney-based Evolution Mining Limited announced they noticed a ransomware attack disrupting its IT systems on August 8. The ASX-listed gold miner believes the security incident is “now contained,” suggesting the company has effective recovery measures in place. 

The globally relevant gold mining company’s release mentions that it has enlisted the help of external cyber forensic experts to investigate the unauthorized access incident while focusing on “protecting the health, safety, and privacy of people” and the firm’s systems and data.

Evolution reported the attack to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), a part of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) government agency. However, the ACSC told Reuters that the Australian gold mining giant did not provide substantial details of the security breach.

The company stated that the disruption to its IT systems did not have any material impact on operations and refrained from mentioning possible stolen data or who the attackers were.

Evolution Mining currently operates six mines and owns an 80% share of Northparkes in New South Wales. The five wholly-owned mines are: Red Lake in Ontario, Canada; Cowal in New South Wales; Ernest Henry and Mt Rawdon in Queensland; and Mungari in Western Australia, which is undergoing a $250 million expansion.

Australia’s Northern Minerals announced being hit by a ransomware attack in June. The BianLian ransomware group claimed to have gained access to over a terabyte of data belonging to the operators of the Browns Range mine in Western Australia's Kimberley region. 

They posted a sample of the exfiltrated data on the Dark Web with various sensitive information, including corporate, operational, and financial data and details about current and former personnel.