P-Fleet, a company that makes fuel cards for commercial truck fleets, yesterday notified 2,948 people about a February 2024 data breach that compromised names and Social Security numbers, among other data.
Ransomware group Donex claimed responsibility for the attack. P-Fleet’s notification confirmed it was hit by ransomware, but the company did not verify Donex’s claim.
We don’t yet know how much ransom was demanded, whether P-Fleet paid it, or how attackers breached P-Fleet’s network. Comparitech contacted P-Fleet for more information and will update this article if it responds.
We recommend victims take advantage of the free credit monitoring offered by P-Fleet via TransUnion. The enrollment period lasts 90 days.
Who is Donex?
Donex is a new ransomware outfit and this is the first confirmed attack that it has claimed, according to our records. It claimed four other unconfirmed attacks in March 2024, including a food and beverage company in the Czech Republic, a retail company in Italy, and a transportation company in Switzerland.
Ransomware attacks on US finance
Ransomware attacks on finance and payment companies can disrupt transactions and compromise sensitive financial data. The costs incurred by downtime are often ultimately more than the ransom demanded by attackers.
So far this year, Comparitech researchers logged 14 attacks on financial organizations in the US, affecting nearly 17.2 million records. This is a vast increase on the 4.7 million records affected across 53 attacks throughout the whole of 2023. The majority of this year’s total stems from one attack on LoanDepot, which compromised 16.9 million records.
The average ransom on this industry throughout 2023/24 is just over $1.5 million.
We further recorded 70 unconfirmed attacks on the financial industry in the US so far this year.
About P-Fleet
Plavan Commercial Fueling is a California-based company that operates under the P-Fleet brand. P-Fleet sells fuel cards used by commercial trucking fleets, which truckers use to purchase fuel. According to its website, P-Fleet serves 100,000 cardholders.