{
	"id": "2a1c63a2-4a5b-4162-82d0-527210d00e7b",
	"created_at": "2026-04-06T00:09:12.768521Z",
	"updated_at": "2026-04-10T13:11:38.111403Z",
	"deleted_at": null,
	"sha1_hash": "6621c06da7a50c2dd68a0204ddfa9e6d58f6ab2a",
	"title": "The ransomware attack on Westpole is disrupting digital services for Italian public administration",
	"llm_title": "",
	"authors": "",
	"file_creation_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
	"file_modification_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
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	"plain_text": "The ransomware attack on Westpole is disrupting digital services\r\nfor Italian public administration\r\nBy Pierluigi Paganini\r\nPublished: 2023-12-19 · Archived: 2026-04-05 17:15:39 UTC\r\n Pierluigi Paganini December 19, 2023\r\nAn alleged Lockbit 3.0 ransomware attack on the Italian cloud service provider\r\nWestpole disrupted multiple services of local and government organizations and\r\nmunicipalities.\r\nA cyber attack hit on December 8, 2023 the Italian cloud service provider Westpole, which is specialized in\r\ndigital services for public administration. The incident impacted a Westpole’s customer company named PA\r\nDigitale which offers its services to various local and government organizations that rely on its platform Urbi. PA\r\nDigitale provides its service to 1300 public administrations, including 540 municipalities.\r\nThe company notified the privacy regulator Garante della Privacy and the Italian police, which are investigating\r\nthe cyber attack,\r\nAccording to people with knowledge on the matter, Westpole was the victim of a ransomware attack. Threat actors\r\nemployed the Lockbit 3.0 variant, however, at the time of this writing the company is not listed on the Tor leak\r\nsite of the Lockbit gang.\r\nThe attackers employed Lockbit ransomware to target PA Digitale and the security incident paralyzed the services\r\nof the many public administrations and municipalities. Several municipalities were forced to return to manual\r\nhttps://securityaffairs.com/156090/cyber-crime/westpole-ransomware-attack.html\r\nPage 1 of 2\n\noperations to provide certain services. The Italian cybersecurity agency “Agenzia per la Cybersicurezza Nazionale\r\n(ACN)” is currently working to recover data for the impacted entities.\r\nDuring the last hours, some of the Italian media reported that the attack could interfere with the payments of\r\nDecember salaries to the employees at some of the impacted government organizations.\r\nThe ACN provided the following statement:\r\n“The activity carried out allowed the recovery of the data subject to the attack for more than 700 of the national\r\nand local public entities linked to the supply chain of PA Digitale S.p.A”. reported the ACN.\r\n“For the remaining Administrations – there are approximately 1,000 public entities contractually linked to PA\r\nDigitale S.p.A. for the provision of management services of various kinds – the need remains to recover data\r\ndating back to the 3 days preceding the attack, which occurred on 8 December”.\r\n“It should also be specified, as confirmed by the PA Digitale company itself, that the activity carried out allows us\r\nto avoid the feared failure to pay December salaries and the thirteenth salary to the employees of some indirectly\r\naffected local administrations”.\r\nThe extent of damage resulting from the ransomware attack is difficult to assess. According to the Italian media\r\noutlet La Repubblica, Westpole has only managed to restore 50% of its systems. The ACN indicates a slow and\r\nchallenging recovery process, raising uncertainty about the company’s ability to fully restore the impacted\r\nsystems. Experts caution that affected public administrations may struggle to fulfill certain services and\r\nobligations to their employees.\r\nImmediately following the revelation of the Westpole attack, the cloud service provider asserted that no data was\r\nexfiltrated from its systems. However, if the ransomware attack is confirmed, it’s challenging to believe that a\r\nsophisticated group like Lockbit 3.0 refrained from exfiltrating any data.\r\nThe only certainty at the moment is that the attack on Westpole is the most serious suffered by the Italian public\r\nadministration to date.\r\nFollow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon\r\nPierluigi Paganini\r\n(SecurityAffairs – hacking, ransomware)\r\nSource: https://securityaffairs.com/156090/cyber-crime/westpole-ransomware-attack.html\r\nhttps://securityaffairs.com/156090/cyber-crime/westpole-ransomware-attack.html\r\nPage 2 of 2",
	"extraction_quality": 1,
	"language": "EN",
	"sources": [
		"ETDA"
	],
	"origins": [
		"web"
	],
	"references": [
		"https://securityaffairs.com/156090/cyber-crime/westpole-ransomware-attack.html"
	],
	"report_names": [
		"westpole-ransomware-attack.html"
	],
	"threat_actors": [
		{
			"id": "0fc739cf-0b82-48bf-9f7d-398a200b59b5",
			"created_at": "2022-10-25T16:07:23.797925Z",
			"updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:04.752608Z",
			"deleted_at": null,
			"main_name": "LockBit Gang",
			"aliases": [
				"Bitwise Spider",
				"Operation Cronos"
			],
			"source_name": "ETDA:LockBit Gang",
			"tools": [
				"3AM",
				"ABCD Ransomware",
				"CrackMapExec",
				"EmPyre",
				"EmpireProject",
				"LockBit",
				"LockBit Black",
				"Mimikatz",
				"PowerShell Empire",
				"PsExec",
				"Syrphid"
			],
			"source_id": "ETDA",
			"reports": null
		}
	],
	"ts_created_at": 1775434152,
	"ts_updated_at": 1775826698,
	"ts_creation_date": 0,
	"ts_modification_date": 0,
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