Toronto Zoo says ransomware attack did not impact animal care or online ticket sales

Toronto Zoo, the largest zoological park in Canada, said it suffered a ransomware attack last week but animal care and support systems were not affected.

Encompassing 287 hectares, Toronto Zoo is among the world’s largest zoological parks and is home to over 5,000 animals from Indo-Malaya, Africa, Americas, Tundra Trek, Australasia, Eurasia, and the Canadian regions. The zoo is maintained by the municipal government of Toronto and attracts about 1.5 million visitors every year.

In a notice on its website, Toronto Zoo said that on January 5, it identified suspicious activities in its internal network and immediately launched an internal investigation with assistance from third party cyber security experts to understand the nature and scope of the incident.

Authorities at the zoo quickly determined that the facility suffered a ransomware attack and are in the process of determining whether the incident had any impact on its guests, members and donor records.

While the investigation is still ongoing and authorities haven’t shared many details about the incident, Toronto Zoo has clarified that it doesn’t store any credit card information.

“Currently, our animal wellbeing, care and support systems have not been impacted by this incident and we are continuing with normal Zoo operations including being open to guests. The Zoo website is not impacted, and ticket purchases can continue to be made online at torontozoo.com,” the notice reads.

Toronto Zoo authorities are working with the City of Toronto’s Chief Information Security Office to resolve the issue and has notified relevant law enforcement authorities about the ransomware attack.

“If anyone is trying to contact the Zoo over the next several days we ask for your patience as we will endeavour to respond in a timely manner but response times may be impacted,” the zoo added. Zoo authorities said they will share more details about the cyber security incident as and when available.

As of now, no criminal group has claimed responsibility for the ransomware attack on Toronto Zoo, nor has the zoo indicated whether it has received a ransom demand.

The ransomware attack follows another major cybersecurity incident affecting Air Canada in October that compromised the personal information of a limited number of employees.

In a statement on its website, Air Canada said, “An unauthorised group briefly obtained limited access to an internal Air Canada system related to limited personal information of some employees and certain records. We can confirm that our flight operations systems and customer-facing systems were not affected.”

The airline assured customers that none of their information had been accessed, but notified the affected parties and informed relevant authorities about the incident. Air Canada also affirmed that all of its systems were functioning normally. Following the breach, the company worked with cybersecurity experts to bolster the security of its systems.

The notorious BianLian ransomware group later claimed responsibility for the data security incident at Air Canada, stating that it stole up to 210 gigabytes of data from the airline’s internal database. It is not clear whether the airline paid a ransom to regain access to the stolen data.