(The Hill) — The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on Wednesday announced an investigation into a “major” cybersecurity incident for which the Qilin ransomware group claimed responsibility.
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The ATF said a standalone system operating separately from the agency’s network did not appear to affect its enterprise network, eForms system or other systems, according to a statement. It also noted that senior Department of Justice (DOJ) officials designated the occurrence as a “major incident” under applicable federal guidelines.
“Upon discovery of the incident, ATF immediately terminated connections to the affected environment and initiated incident‑response and forensic activities,” the agency said. “ATF is coordinating closely with the Department of Justice to investigate.”
The ATF did not confirm or mention that Qilin was responsible, nor did it say when the incident took place or what data was stolen. However, the Russian-linked hacker group took credit for the hack, listing the ATF along with five other victims in the manufacturing and industrial sectors on its dark web leak site early Wednesday, CyberNews reported…