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How hackers extorted $1.14m from a US university:
A leading medical-research institution working on a cure for Covid-19 has admitted it paid hackers a $1.14m (£910,000) ransom after a covert negotiation witnessed by BBC News.
The Netwalker criminal gang attacked University of California San Francisco (UCSF) on 1 June.
IT staff unplugged computers in a race to stop the malware spreading.
And an anonymous tip-off enabled BBC News to follow the ransom negotiations in a live chat on the dark web.
[...] At first glance, its dark-web homepage looks like a standard customer-service website, with a frequently asked questions (FAQ) tab, an offer of a "free" sample of its software and a live-chat option.
But there is also a countdown timer ticking down to a time when the hackers either double the price of their ransom, or delete the data they have scrambled with malware.
Also at Security Week.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @01:39AM (1 child)
Surely the US has agencies that should have been alerted and in on this, not the reporters from the BBC (a crooked organisation extorting outdated TV "licences" from the UK population via 'contractors'). And surely these agencies can pin-point the location of the bad guys. Apple 10 years ago put a pin on my visiting friends iDevice down to within 2 feet. And I would expect the bad guys about 48 minutes after their location has been discovered, to hear (or not, due to Mach 5) the approaching nuclear warhead.
We need a New Internet - built on trust and identity - otoh, A/C is useful and convenient at times.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 30 2020, @01:53AM
You've been watching too many Hollywood movies with TLAs pin-pointing the hackers' location in like 2 mins or less (cause the movie is 80mins total)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford