The National Rifle Association (NRA) confirmed that it was the victim of a ransomware attack in October. According to a filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the NRA’s political action committee (PAC) describes how on October 20th, 2021, the organization’s “network was taken offline for two weeks” due to a ransomware attack. Due to the NRA’s inability to “access email or network files until the second week of November,” the organization failed to record over $2,500 in donations, which prompted the filing.
Last year, a Russian cybercriminal gang calling itself Grief claimed responsibility for purportedly hacking the National Rifle Association and uploading what looked to be stolen papers on the dark web. Grief, which is believed to be affiliated with the infamous Russian hacking outfit Evil Corp, threatened to leak additional papers if its payment threshold was not met.
There is no information on whether the NRA ever made restitution. At the time, the organization did not admit the attack publicly, instead of issuing a statement on Twitter in which it stated that it “does not discuss anything relevant to its physical or electronic security” and that it “takes exceptional efforts to secure information.”
