Professional Golfer’s Association of America, shortly known as PGA is said to have become a target to ransomware spreaders on Tuesday this week.
And as per the sources reporting to Cybersecurity Insiders, the servers of PGA America were hit by the malware- just before the official launch of PGA Championship in Missouri officially scheduled to be launched on August 9th, 2018.
It’s said that the data on the servers which includes promotional banners and logos useful for digital promotions were encrypted by hackers who are said to be demanding a ransom in Bitcoins.
A source from PGA who likes to comment on an anonymous note, says that the authorities of the golf association are not in a mood to entertain the hackers and instead want some assistance from outside expertise to bring back the servers to life.
BitPaymer Ransomware is said to have infected the systems and the decryption tools to free up the servers from the malware is yet to be developed.
If in case, the hackers infected the servers of PGA with BitPaymer then they usually demand anything between 53 BTC to 60 BTC.
So, in this cyber attack, the same demand would have been put forward- which is yet to be confirmed.
Some sources from Golfweek suggest that a Cybersecurity firm has been pressed into the service to clean up the mess and to investigate on whose behind the attack.
The law enforcement and FBI was informed about the incident on late Wednesday and the tournament is slated to continue as per the usual schedule.
Note- PGA is conducted in 14 districts of America and golf aspirants and students are allowed participate in the championship after going through three levels of education courses, written exams, simulation testing, seminars, and should pass PGA Playing Ability Test. Currently, the PGA America is made up of 29,000 men and women golf professional members and are headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida since 1916.
