Evolution Mining has informed that it has been targeted by a ransomware attack on August 8, 2024, which impacted its IT systems.
The company has contracted external cybersecurity experts to help with the remediation efforts, and based on the current information, the attack is now fully contained.
Evolution Mining is one of Australia’s largest gold producers, and it has a presence in Canada as well. In 2023, it produced over 650,000 ounces of gold and 1.8 million tonnes of copper, contributing $1.6 billion to the Australian and Canadian economies.
The public company has 10 million ounces of gold in ore reserves, which gives it a strong market capitalization position and places it among the top mining firms listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), where it’s traded as EVN.
The company stated that despite the disruption the ransomware attack caused to its IT systems, it does not anticipate it will have any material impact on operations.
This means that mining operations should continue uninterrupted, indicating that the threat actors either didn’t encrypt any systems or they did not hit production-critical workstations.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre has been informed about the incident accordingly.
As of writing this, no major ransomware groups have assumed responsibility for the attack at Evolution Mining.
Also, the firm has not stated anything about the possibility of data having been stolen during the incident, which is typically an indispensable part of ransomware attacks.
BleepingComputer has contacted Evolution Mining to learn more about the incident, but a comment wasn’t immediately available.
In June 2024, Northern Minerals, another large Australian mining company focused on heavy rare earth elements (HRE) used in a wide range of electronics, admitted a data breach following the leak of their data on the dark web.
The attack was conducted by BianLian, a former ransomware group that switched to a new strategy of data-theft-based extortion without data encryption.
That breach exposed Northern Mineral’s operational details, research and development data, financial information, personal data of employees, shareholder information, and high-ranking executives’ email archives.