Pharmacy giant Rite Aid hit by ransomware

Rite Aid is the latest example of a high-profile vendor falling victim to ransomware attacks after the company announced it had experienced a “limited” cybersecurity incident last month.

In a statement, the company said its investigation into the response to the incident was “complete.”

“Together with our third-party cybersecurity partner’s experts, we have restored our systems and are fully operational,” Rite Aid said.

“We take our commitment to protecting personal data very seriously and this incident is a top priority. We thank you for your patience until we can provide more information.”

According to screenshots posted on X (formerly Twitter), the ransomware group RansomHub was responsible for the incident. The group posted on its leak site that it had received 10GB of data from the pharmacy, which equated to “45 million lines” of personal information about customers.

“This information includes name, address, ID number, date of birth and Riteaid reward number,” the post continued. “When we reached an agreement at the end of the negotiations, they suddenly stopped communicating. This suggests that Riteaid leadership does not value the security of their customers’ sensitive data.”

Read more on RansomHub: CEO of UnitedHealth confirms data theft and missing MFA

RansomHub was created in February 2024 and has former ALPHV/BlackCat affiliates in its ranks. The company famously attempted to extort Change Healthcare for a second time after the company paid ALPHV a $22 million ransom earlier this year.

Last month, it was revealed that the prolific cybercrime group Scattered Spider had become a partner of RansomHub. The group often uses its English language skills to socially engineer employees into giving up their credentials for initial access.

The company was responsible for a series of high-profile ransomware incidents last year, affecting major companies including MGM International, Caesars Entertainment and Okta.

Rite Aid is the third largest pharmacy chain in the United States with over 2,000 locations nationwide and sales of over $24 billion.

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