Operations at Copper Mountain Mine (CMM) are being re-established following a ransomware attack on the company Dec. 27, 2022.
In a release Issued Jan. 6, 2023, the company stated work at the primary crusher resumed Jan. 1, and shortly after the mill, which had been proactively closed following the attack, also reopened.
On Jan. 4 the mill was at full production.
“The operation is currently being stabilized as the remaining business systems are fully restored.,” the release states.
During the downtime, which was forced by the attack on the mine’s IT system, CMM continued to ship copper from its inventory.
“Throughout the outage, all environmental management systems at the Copper Mountain Mine were operational, and there were no environmental incidents or injuries to personnel.”
CMM IT teams are working with cybersecurity experts to establish new safeguards for its systems.
“The company’s primary objective remains to return to full business functionality in a safe and secure manner.”
According to the province’s Information Security Branch (ISB), ransomware is a form of malicious code or malware that infects a computer or network and spreads rapidly to encrypt the data.
This malware makes the data inaccessible to the users and the criminals responsible will demand payment from the user in order to have their files unencrypted and returned.
The payment is often requested in Bitcoin or other electronic currency.
The ISB says there are three ways computers are commonly attacked.
• Email – the individual clicks on a malicious link or attachment in a phishing email.
• Malvertising – the individual visits a site that displays infected advertisements.
• Drive-by-Downloading – the individual visits a legitimate or illegitimate website with an exploit that has not been patched. This means that simply opening the website will run the ransomware without the user knowing.
Copper Mountain Mine has more than 400 employees.
Related: Copper Mountain Mine victim of ransomware attack in Princeton
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